Nothing is what you cannot measure. Yet.
by Rabbit
Money is one measure of success.
Family is one measure of success.
The number of beautiful, expensive prostitutes you have gleefully fucked is a measure of success.
Now it’s your turn. Define at least one measure of success, for you, personally, and add it to that list.
From that list, pick any number of measures you find desirable.
Congratulations. You have defined your personal definition of success.
Until you are able to measure success, you cannot know whether you are successful.
That’s my “motivating speaker” bit. Now for the math bit.
A ratio contains two parts. A numerator and a denominator. The denominator can be thought of as your base, or rate. An example of a rate in action can be seen by simply counting. You can count by 1: 1, 2, 3, 4… In each iteration, you counted at a rate of 1. Let’s consider a rate of 4: 4, 8, 12, 16… In each iteration, you counted at a rate of 4. The job of the denominator is to determine how many times (or what percentage) of its own area will it take to completely encompass the area of the numerator.
Another take: If I have one bottle that holds one gallon of water, will it be less than full, exactly full, or more than full (overflowing) if I pour second bottle of water into the first? Clearly, you cannot answer that question until you know the size of the second bottle of water. And that, is the numerator’s job.
A denominator could also be, say, American dollars. Simply saying, “I have $420.” could be written as 420/$. See it now? Denominators can be anything. Literally. Anything, except, that is, nothing.
Nothing is what you cannot measure.
That phrase again.
If we use the denominator as a way to measure something, ask yourself: how can I measure something (the numerator) based on nothing (the denominator)?
More than anything, I hope you take away from this a better understanding of what a ratio is and, possibly to a lesser extent, what division is. I also hope the answer will make the “undefined” definition of division by zero more clear to you.
Happy counting.
