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As an assembly-language programmer I had a pretty big bag of tricks.
Division by subtraction was in the bag. Sometimes it was appropriate
and sometimes it was not.
Indeed, the two modern Digital Signal Processors I have worked....
with both do division by subtraction. I doubt either TI or
Analog Devices would consider it laughable.
Of course, division is extremely expensive on a DSP because of
this method. Typically, a 16-bit division takes 16 clock
cycles, whereas multiplication takes one clock cycle,
Wow, John. You must be teaching to a different 4th grade
audience (the grade where division is typically taught), than
any which I have encountered.
If I encountered such a statement, I would, minimally, be
curious where the student learned the concept, and what
"multiplicative inverse" meant to him/her in *other* words
which are part of a 4th grader's vocabulary. Worse, yet, I
would see if the student could convey this concept to anybody
who was "just learning" to perform division, ie, let the
student be a peer tutor. And then, I'd get the student to
teach relativity and quantum mechanics for the next 4th grade
trick (smile).