Question 727

The arithmetic class was in progress. The teacher was solving questions on division. On the backboard were drawn three bananas.

“We have three bananas,” the teacher said, “and we have three boys. Can you tell me how many each will get?”

A smart boy in the front row replied, “Each will get one.”

“Right,” the teacher said. “Now, similarly, if 1,000 bananas are distributed among 1,000 boys, each will get one, isn’t that so?”

While the teacher was explaining, a boy sitting in one corner raised his hand and stood up. The teacher stopped and waiting for the boy to speak.

“Sir,” the boy asked, “if no bananas is distributed among no one, will everyone still get one banana?” There was roar of laughter in the class. What a silly question to ask!

“Quite,” the teacher said loudly and thumped the desk. “There is nothing to laugh at. I will just explain what he means to say. For the division of bananas, we divided three by three, saying that each boy will get one banana. Similarly, we divided 1,000 by 1,000 to get one. What he is asking is that if zero banana is divided among zero, will each one get one? The answer is ‘no’. Mathematically, each will get an infinite number of bananas!”

Everyone laughed again. The boys understood the trick arithmetic had played upon them. What they could not understand was why the teacher later complimented the boy who had asked that absurd question.

The boy had asked a question that had taken mathematicians several centuries to answer.
Id this famous son of India who asked this weird question.



Srinivasa Ramanujan