Regarding this infernal, interminable thread.
Contrary, perhaps, to the title, this is not a pitting of Mr. 7777777, as mere forces of nature are without reason, wholly idiotic and innocent, and therefore above reproach. You’d with as much consequence chastise a thunderstorm for drowning your azaleas. No, friends, this is a pitting of the rest of you. You know who you are.
Having maintained a studied but aloof interest in the progress of the aforementioned thread, I have occasionally had to resist an impulse to add my own voice to the well-meaning chorus of explanations, expositions, and pedagogical discursions that 7777777’s religious fervor seems to demand.
I understand the temptation, believe me. Man is always loath to let a raincloud have the last word. I myself once spent a pleasant afternoon explaining the proof of Burnside’s lemma to a ladybug, which elementary result of group theory it stubbornly defied. Regrettably, it flew away just as I was demonstrating the fallacy of one of its counter-rebuttals. I felt cheated, and naturally woeful that my efforts had not reduced the amount of ignorance in the world by even one iota.
I still occasionally slip into error, but I have learned my lesson sufficiently to be capable of recognizing the fault which several of our esteemed colleagues are, alas! indulging.
That 0.9̅ is another notation for 1 is a simple and obvious fact; a systemic failure to understand any of the dozens of accessible, correct, and concise proofs of this fact can only be explained by a full-stack, no-holds-barred, aggressive and wilful discomprehension of not just the mere concept of notation, but every tenet foundational to formalism of any kind. Such a mind should be consigned to a cell in Broadmoor, or made the chair of a Liberal Arts college, but should on no account be argued with.
I pray, with little hope, for an end to the madness.
