Division is the operation of taking the ratio of two numbers and , also written . Here, is called the dividend, is called the divisor, and is called a quotient. The symbol "/" is called a solidus (sometimes, the "diagonal"), and the symbol "" is called the obelus. If left unevaluated, is called a fraction, with known as the numerator and known as the denominator.

Division in which the fractional (remainder) is discarded is called integer division, and is sometimes denoted using a backslash, .

Division is the inverse operation of multiplication, so that if

then can be recovered as

as long as . In general, division by zero is not defined since the ability to "invert" to recover breaks down if (in which case is always 0, independent of ).

Cutting or separating an object into two or more parts is also called division.

See also

Addition, Complex Division, Cutting, Denominator, Divide, Dividend, Division by Zero, Divisor, Integer Division, Long Division, Multiplication, Numerator, Obelus, Odds, Plane Division by Lines, Quotient, Ratio, Reciprocal, Skeleton Division, Solidus, Space Division by Spheres, Subtraction, Synthetic Division, Trial Division, Vector Division

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Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Division." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Division.html

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