Can x equals 0

Answer 1

Yes, x can equal zero (0).

People ask this quite a bit. You are not alone, it maybe because of the misperception of "math is about 'numbers'." As a matter of fact, Math is about symbols, and operations on symbols. We define this symbol "=" to mean equality, but with out this definition, "=" is just a symbol.

Same as "x", "0" etc. They are all symbols, we conventionally give "0" a meaning. Now we want to give "x" one, even just temporarily. So we define x to be 0. But we mathematicians are lazy, probably the laziest creatures on earth, or even the universe, so we want short hands. So we said "hey! '=' means equality hey? It technically mean the same as define, why don't we just say ' x = 0' " (Reads x equals 0). Then there we go.

So it's just like giving these poor meaningless symbols a meaning, it's perfectly fine to let x = 0.

In some context though x cannot be 0, or something bad happens, but that's a different matter. It's the boring "number" aspect of Math.

(Sometimes, x HAS to be 0, but, again, it has to do with the context of x)