Calories?

As I went for a run today, I was thinking about the calories that I was burning. The screen on the treadmill listed that I was burning 1100 calories per hour.  I began contemplating what a calorie was? And if I am burning these calories, it would lead me to believe that I am a composition of thousands and thousands of calories. Therefore, in the end I am a huge number.





Reflecting back, I realise that the number of calories that I am burning reflect the energy I am expending.  The calories may mean fat, weight or even sweat.  But then again calories are found in all the food we eat. For example a piece of cheesecake may contain 500 calories, so the more cheesecake we eat would mean the more calories or numbers we put in our bodies.

 

It seems to me that though the human body is a composition of organs, skin, hair, water, bones etc. We may also look at it as a number.  This coincides with food. That cheesecake may be made up of flower, cheese, salt, sugar, cream and so on. However, another person may look at the cheesecake simply as a number of calories. This leads me to believe that human beings as well as food can be viewed solely as a number.

Dividing by ZERO

Last week in class Professor Antosz wanted us to come up with a way to teach students how to divide a number by zero.  My first instinct was to search the web for the solution.  I found this video on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fBZK106C3Q
Seeing as that was no help, I turned to Google. The result was the following image.

I know that dividing by zero is undefined..... but why? When zero is divided by 3, it is equal to zero but not the other way around.

Upon further thought, the reason dividing by zero does not equate relates to the following examples.   I have 3 empty jars. These jars are empty thus they represent 0. Now I am going to divide them into 3 groups.  Therefore taking 0 and dividing it into 3 makes sense. It equals 0. I have 0 things in 3 different groups!

On the other hand what if I now took those three jars and filled them with jam.  I want to take these 3 jars of jam and split them into zero groups.  Unfortunately, I am unable to take these 3 jars and divide them into 0 groups. It is an impossibility to take a thing of substance and put it in no place.  Resulting in  3 / 0 = undefined.

Zero is a number that can be used in a multitude of ways.  It can be added and subtracted, it can be a symbol or a place, and it has the ability to create shapes and images. However, when taking a anything and dividing it by zero…. It can only be undefined!