Divide by Zero: Difference between revisions
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The characters did something so incredibly ''wrong'' that reality itself couldn't handle it. Could be the result of a [[Time Paradox]], the result of a [[Yin-Yang Clash]], or an [[Unstoppable Force Meets Immovable Object|unstoppable force meeting an immovable object]], or the risk behind the [[Forbidden Chekhov's Gun]].
To divide a number by zero is the one thing elementary math teachers tell you<ref>Sometimes, an elementary math teacher will insist that division by zero gives zero. They are wrong, although 0/0 ''is'' different than any other 0-division case.</ref> that you [[Lies to Children|simply cannot do]] (but as usual, Real Life is more complicated than elementary school; see [[Divide by Zero/Trivia|the Trivia section]]). It led to a joke on [[Image Board
Compare [[Awesomeness Is Volatile]], where [[Chuck Norris]] [[Chuck Norris Facts|can divide by zero]]. See also [[Logic Bomb]], which can overlap with this. Not to be confused with [[The Singularity]].
{{examples}}
==
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NojiCsZQSr8 This] Staples Easy Button commercial.
== Anime and Manga ==
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* [[Time Crash|Something very close to this]] happens in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''. If you make a wish with indefinite duration (as opposed to instant wishes like "heal someone's crippled hand" or "save someone from the brink of death"), your wish is somehow tied to the passage of time. {{spoiler|Homura's}} wish to save someone already dead turned her life into a [[Groundhog Day Loop]], although she could control when she went back.
** In the finale, {{spoiler|Madoka}} pulls an even more audacious one. {{spoiler|Backed by the enormous amounts of karma Homura's time-loops have built up, she wishes to personally destroy every Witch, past, present and future - including hers. Cue Ultimate Madoka one-shotting her own evil future self and leaving the normal flow of time.}}
* In the [[Firesign Theatre]]'s album ''Eat Or Be Eaten'', a gamer tries to go to band 100 of a 99 band disk, and is sucked into the game.▼
{{quote|'''Player''': What the FUUUUUUUUU-}}▼
* At the end of [[George Carlin]]'s special ''Life Is Worth Losing'', he talks about a broken water main in [[Los Angeles]] leading to more and more bizarre developments, eventually resulting in a wormhole opening above Earth, and all the dead people flooding out.▼
== Comic Books ==
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* This is slowly happening to ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' multiverse as "thinnies"—rips in the barriers between realities—gobble up space and time because the [[Big Bad]] is {{spoiler|using psychic energy}} to destroy the [[World Tree|titular tower]].
* Parodied in the ''[[Discworld]]'' novels, where one of Hex's quirky error messages is "Divide by Cucumber Error". Also, "Please reinstall universe and reboot."
** And let's not forget the effect of the first Glass Clock in ''[[
* Ted Chiang's ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130115121005/http://www.fantasticmetropolis.com/i/division/ Division By Zero]'' uses this as an analogy for the central mathematical conceit of the plot.
* In one of the dialogues from ''[[Godel Escher Bach|Gödel, Escher, Bach]]'', Achilles is granted permission by [[God]] to make one infinite-level Typeless Wish. He says, "I wish my wish would not be granted!" After this [[Logic Bomb]] goes off in a way that "cannot possibly be described, and so no attempt will be made to describe it", Achilles and the Tortoise find themselves in a totally unfamiliar environment. Achilles asks, "Did the earth come to a standstill? Did the universe cave in?" The Tortoise explains that they were [[Inside a Computer System|inside "The System"]] and the paradoxical wish crashed it: "I'm sorry, Achilles--you blew it. You crashed the System, and you should thank our lucky stars that we're back at all. Things could have come out a lot worse."
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* In "The Gate of the Flying Knives", a short story that is part of the ''[[Thieves' World]]'' anthology series, the bard Cappen Varra (who has absolutely no magical abilities whatsoever) permanently destroys a dimensional portal with applied geometry. Specifically, as the portal takes the form of a large scroll that has one side in one dimension and another side in the other dimension, by giving the scroll a half-twist and then sticking the ends together he turns it into a Mobius strip -- which of course only has one side, and thus, can no longer function as a portal. Confronted with this metaphysical paradox, the scroll/portal disintegrates.
== Live
* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'': Using an [[Neglectful Precursors|Ancient Project]] to create a super-energy source, [[Insufferable Genius|Doctor Rodney Mckay]] accidentally makes particles that defy the laws of physics. The result? He [[Never Live It Down|repeatedly gets called out]] for [[Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?|destroying an entire solar system]]!
* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', this would be the result of detonating {{spoiler|Davros'}} "reality bomb".
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{{quote|'''Crichton''': (commenting on his brand spanking new [[Our Wormholes Are Different|Wormhole]] [[Superweapon Surprise|Weapon]]) ''Okay boys and girls, here are the rules. Find a penny, pick it up. Double it, you've got two pennies. Double it again: four. Double it 27 more times, and you've got a million dollars and the IRS all over your ass. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows, but it all adds up... quick. ...It eats the whole universe, a monumental black hole, a giant whirling headstone marking the spot where we all used to live and play and slaughter the innocent.''}}
* ''[[Square One TV]]'' had the [[Show Within a Show]] "Oops!", where a mathematician makes a mistake that causes a certain disaster to happen, eg incorrectly multiplying 603 by 7 causes Galloping Gertie to collapse.
== Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy ==
▲* In the [[Firesign Theatre]]'s album ''Eat Or Be Eaten'', a gamer tries to go to band 100 of a 99 band disk, and is sucked into the game.
▲{{quote|'''Player''': What the FUUUUUUUUU-}}
▲* At the end of [[George Carlin]]'s special ''Life Is Worth Losing'', he talks about a broken water main in [[Los Angeles]] leading to more and more bizarre developments, eventually resulting in a wormhole opening above Earth, and all the dead people flooding out.
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', the classical example is placing [[Bag of Holding]] into a Portable Hole (both are sucked into a rift to the Astral Plane) or vice versa (both are destroyed, everything and everyone around is sucked into the Astral Plane and a gate to another plane is opened).
{{quote|[http://forum.rpg.net/archive/index.php/t-221494.html "If at any time you're the last person standing, with absolutely no way to save us, fling the bag of holding into the portable hole and pray."]}}
* This is the premise behind the ''Time Spiral'' block/story arc of ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''. Essentially, all the near-apocalyptic scenarios that Dominaria (the core plane of the multiverse) has been through in the previous arcs have caused the fabric of reality to become unstable, causing rifts between timelines and universes that threaten to destroy all that exists.
* In the ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' [[Trading Card Game]], hitting The Immovable Object (a shield) with The Unstoppable Force (a 2-handed mace) will destroy both objects.
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== Western Animation ==
* One episode of ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
** [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|And Irwin becomes Mojo Jojo]].
** The scenario was inverted in a much earlier episode, where Mandy very clearly smiled after she made everyone else on Earth vanish instantly.
*** And in the very first episode, where she smiled and winked at the camera.
* ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]''
** [[The Smart Guy|Egon]]
** In "The Boogeyman Cometh", Ray claims using the throwers ''at all'' in the Boogeyman's pocket dimension could be even ''worse'' than crossing the streams, as the laws of physics are different there.
** There was also the episode "The Hole in the Wall Gang". In a haunted house, ghosts were spawned out of holes in the wall, and how big and powerful the ghost was depended on the size of the hole. (As in, small hole, weak ghost, big hole, strong ghost.) This created a problem when fighting them blew a ''huge'' hole in the wall, with the potential to spawn the worst monster they had ever fought. Egon quickly determined that placing a smaller hole inside the big hole could dispell the effect, but he aborted the plan upon realizing it might also cause a reality breaking paradox situation and cause the entire universe to implode. [[From Bad to Worse| But it only got worse]] when the creature destroyed the whole house, making the hole much bigger, and giving them no choice but to risk the first plan. Fortunately, the risk paid off.
* In the first ''[[Futurama]]'' movie, Bender causes this by gathering a whole bunch of time-duplicates of himself from his many trips back in time and convincing them not to come out when they were supposed to.
* One episode of ''[[Adventure Time]]'' has Finn blowing a ''fourth dimensional bubble'' which caused a black hole to form due to its sheer impossibility.
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'''Princess Bubblegum:''' Finn, that would mean you've created--
'''Finn:''' Yes... '''A BLACK HOLE!''' }}
* From ''[[Extreme Ghostbusters]]'' episode “The Infernal Machine”, Roland is coerced into building the eponymous Machine by the villain, using parts of the team’s equipment. Once Egon finds this out:
{{quote|'''Egon:''' Once the cartridges are depleted, they’ll extract new ions directly from the machine’s electromagnetic domain, greatly increasing the certainty of a transmobile meltdown of disastrous… nay, ''Biblical'' proportions!
'''Eduardo:''' Se hablo ingles?
'''Kylie:''' It’s gonna blow up real good.}}
== Real Life ==
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[[Category:Apocalyptic Index]]
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