Ted Chiang’s story, “Division by Zero”, contrasts the kind of knowledge of mathematics one has through understanding and insight with the kind of knowledge of mathematics one has through mere symbol manipulation. This chapter aims to give the reader the experience of this contrast, and show how it makes sense of certain aspects of the history of mathematics. There was once a thought that mathematics could be protected from inconsistency by making it entirely about symbol manipulation. Chiang’s story can help us see that this project would have made math just as meaningless as inconsistency would.