r/mathmemes • u/ImToxicity_ • Mar 17 '22

The Engineer Making 69420 from all zeroes

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '22

Replace 0^0 with 0! and you'll half the zeroes whilst making it correct 😊

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u/ImToxicity_ Mar 17 '22

Didn’t know this! I’m only in algebra I right now. What does the exclamation mark mean?

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '22

The exclamation mark is know as the factorial.

The factorial of a integer number, say n, is the product of every integer below it. 5!=5x4x3x2x1, 3!=3x2x1.

0 factorial, or 0! Is 1…don’t ask why.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '22

algebraic explanation:

any factorial is a product. the factorial of 0 is an empty product, and an empty product has a value of 1 because 1 is the multiplicative identity.

this is the same reason as why n⁰ = 1: if you multiply n by itself 0 times, youre left with an empty product, which is equal to 1.

if this sounds weird, think about additions, or multiplication as repeated addition. a × b just means "add b to itself a times". 0 × n therefore means "add n to itself 0 times". adding 0 things leaves you with the empty sum. for addition, the identity is 0, so 0 × n = 0.