Question

What is the difference between multiplication and division?

Answer 1

Personally I would say that they are basically the same thing. Division is the opposite operation as multiplication. When you multiply you are looking at x groups of y (x*y). When you divide you are splitting a group into smaller groups.

Answer 2

so if I want to divide a real x by another real y, I simply multiply x by the multiplicative inverse of y?

Answer 3

unless y is 0 :-P

Answer 4

Exactly. Instead of dividing by y you can multiply by 1/y. (unless y = 0 because then the universe will implode :P)