While Cookie Monster’s consumption of all Ernie’s cookies is unlikely to lose him a friend, the sum total of zero cookies did cause the beloved Monster to trend on Twitter Tuesday. It appears that the night before, Siri was asked, “What’s zero divided by zero?” and the equation “0÷0 = indeterminate” appeared on the iPhone screen. You can try asking Siri this question as I did and, in addition to seeing this equation, she will tell you:
“Imagine that you have zero cookies and you split them evenly among zero friends. How many cookies does each person get? See? It doesn’t make sense. And Cookie Monster is sad that
there are no cookies, and you are sad that you have no friends.” Siri’s response triggered an avalanche of tweets, often sympathetic to a sum total that equalled having no cookies and no friends! In contrast, you can be happy that you’ll find hundreds of mathematics resources for preK-K — as well as those for older grades — when you search PBS LearningMedia by standard, grade, and/or content.