In reply to Leonid Batkhan.

I understood that.
I was always taught that division by zero was undefined -- not that it was not allowed or impossible. You created one possible definition (or set of definitions) for dividing by zero while also providing a neat coding "trick" and useful and provocative thought exercise.

In a sense, you provided an example of Orwell's commentary on authoritarianism: One feasible and practical manifestation of the political power to control the definition of "truth" or or of facts is the power to manipulate language and the perceptions of truth on a mass scale.

Mathematicians et.. al. "play" these speculative "games" all the time because within mathematics and related fields this is how progress is made. Nevertheless, in most "applied mathematics" we continue to leave division by zero undefined -- or we take the practical step of defining the result of dividing by 0 "missing" or "null" because while it may be a wonderful thought exercise to imagine building a bridge to the sky, for most applied purposes we want to build bridges that don't fall down. In a sense, this is no different from using Newton's law of gravity. We know that Newton's theory of gravity is simply wrong. However applying it works pretty well as long as we are on the planet earth.

When it comes to politics, however, Orwell's warning stands. And when it comes to engineering things that will be built on earth, Newton's theory is still useful.