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Question 71184: Divide. -5/0
Answer by bucky(2189)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Division by 0 is not allowed to happen.
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Think about it. The reverse process of division is to take the quotient and by multiplying it by the divisor, you should find that the product is the dividend. Let's do a very basic example: divide 27 by 3. The dividend is 27. The divisor is 3. The answer (quotient) is 9. You can check by multiplying the quotient (9) times the divisor (3) and get back to the dividend (27).
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Now think of this problem. The dividend is -5 and the divisor is 0. Whatever the quotient turns out to be, you should be able to multiply that quotient by the divisor and get the dividend -5 as the answer. However, the divisor being 0 causes you to be able multiply any quotient and yet never to get back to the dividend because 0 times anything is always 0.
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That's one reason why division by 0 is not permitted.
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Hope this gives you some insight into why the rule about dividing by zero exists.
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