7777777 and .999... == 1

[andros]

Ok, I am well-known as a skilled hacker, so I just tried to independently verify your experiment.

I finally got it to compile…but then it printed “HELLO WORLD” like a million times then let out all my compy’s magic smoke. Please advise.

[Darth_Panda]

@Jragon

hey guyz im pretty sure .999… is not 1 look at my proof i used programming in c language
easy to show
let me blow ur minds
probably no1 ever tried this

maybe u guys should try something b4 spouting ur
empty proofs

never trust
others

here it is
obvious as can be
powerful stuff
effortless done…

#include <stdio.h>

typedef char* number;

int main( void ) {
    number nines = ".999...";
    number one = "1";

    printf("%d
", nines == one);
    return 0;
}

You can’t use the ellipses here - it’s a limitation of the programming language. Try the experiment again, but key in an infinite amount of nines and let us know how it works out.

[DingoelGringo]

@Budget_Player_Cadet

I wish I was more surprised by this. I mean, math isn’t like most other fields of science. There is no uncertainty. There are postulates and proofs. The sole uncertainty comes in at the edges, and there we’re often able to prove that certain problems have no solution! But this is… this is not hard. There are countless proofs for this, and this guy is such a retard. I’m honestly just in that thread to look smart, because something has to make up for my abysmal failure this semester.

The only math course I took in college before dropping out started with an explanation that 2+2 may or may not =4. But it is generally agreed that it does so we (the writers and students of that book) will accept it as doing so.

[Senegoid]

@Stealth_Potato

That 0.9̅ is another notation for 1 is a simple and obvious fact; . . .

< snippy . . . >

I pray, with little hope, for an end to the madness.

Hey all youse guys who dig mathematical discussions, we just had a little side-discussion over at ATMB about this. Turns out that neato-keeno symbol of numbers with the overbars like 0.9̅ isn’t displayed correctly, or not at all, in a lot of browsers. A shame that is, really.

Discussion here: How’d he do that? (Numbers with overbars)

[Colibri]

@DingoelGringo

The only math course I took in college before dropping out started with an explanation that 2+2 may or may not =4. But it is generally agreed that it does so we (the writers and students of that book) will accept it as doing so.

Actually, 2+2 = 5, for sufficiently large values of 2.

[Trinopus]

Two protons plus two protons don’t add up to (exactly) four protons. There’s a little mass deficit.

Nature refutes math!

[Stealth_Potato]

@Darth_Panda

You can’t use the ellipses here - it’s a limitation of the programming language. Try the experiment again, but key in an infinite amount of nines and let us know how it works out.

Piffle! We can solve this problem easily simply by choosing a superior programming language. For example, let us suppose the following in Haskell:

import Data.Ratio
import Control.Applicative

nines :: [Rational]
nines = (9%) . (10^) <$> [1..]

This perfectly straightforward definition allows us to readily approximate the problem to any degree:

> sum $ take 2 nines
99 % 100

> sum $ take 5 nines
99999 % 100000

> sum $ take 20 nines
99999999999999999999 % 100000000000000000000

And so on. Because of Haskell’s well-known ability to handle infinite lists, finding the real, definitive answer to this conundrum once and for all is trivial:

> sum nines
     

I’ll get back to you as soon as that finishes running.

[Zakalwe]

@Colibri

Actually, 2+2 = 5, for sufficiently large values of 2.

That’s just silly. As we all know, 2+2=3.9999…

Or 3 for sufficiently small values of 2.

[Colibri]

@Zakalwe

That’s just silly. As we all know, 2+2=3.9999…

Or 3 for sufficiently small values of 2.

It’s an old math joke about rounding errors. If you are rounding to integers, 2.4 gets rounded down to 2. But 2.4 + 2.4 = 4.8, and 4.8 gets rounded up to 5.

[sich_hinaufwinden]

@friedo

The real numbers are not discrete. They’re smooth. For any two real numbers a and b, if a ≠ b, then there is a number between a and b.

Isn’t it even more truer to say that there’s an infinite amount of numbers between any two unequal numbers? I know that you know this and you hint at it when you say:

@friedo

We can do this forever, and if two numbers are unequal, we can always point to a number between them.

And yet I think it helps to note that specifically. And rather than say:

@friedo

So is there a number between 0.999… and 1? If so, what is it?

If there isn’t a number between them, then 0.999… must be 1.

…we can point out that we’re not asking for someone to find a needle in a haystack - some magical number - that satisfies the condition of being between 0.999… and 1.

We can say ‘‘Hey, there’s an infinite amount of numbers between 0.999… and 1 if they aren’t equal, so just show us any one of those to prove that. If there’s an infinite amount to choose from it should be relatively easy to do so.’’

I’m not just trying to nit pick here. I think it helps drive home your point - one that’s already been made about …999.999… times so far, among others, in the GQ thread.

[Darth_Panda]

Wait, I’m confused about this thread. So the cops knew that internal affairs were setting them up?

[sich_hinaufwinden]

@Darth_Panda

Wait, I’m confused about this thread. So the cops knew that internal affairs were setting them up?

Of course they fucking knew they were being set up.

Did you even read the Og damn book?

In what fucking world would it make sense that they didn’t know they were being set up?!

[The_Great_Unwashed]

Julia Quinn - Those mathematicians are vicious... | Facebook

[Trinopus]

@sich_hinaufwinden

. . . …we can point out that we’re not asking for someone to find a needle in a haystack - some magical number - that satisfies the condition of being between 0.999… and 1.

We can say ‘‘Hey, there’s an infinite amount of numbers between 0.999… and 1 if they aren’t equal, so just show us any one of those to prove that. If there’s an infinite amount to choose from it should be relatively easy to do so.’’

I’m not just trying to nit pick here. I think it helps drive home your point - one that’s already been made about …999.999… times so far, among others, in the GQ thread.

Mathematically, of course, the weaker phrasing is sufficient, but in terms of convincing rhetoric, you’re quite right: your formula is more emphatic, and harder to quibble with.

But, you know how it is. There are still people who disagree with Euclid’s proof that there are an infinite number of primes. It doesn’t matter that Euclid shows us how to construct a new prime number different from all that have gone before: some people, at an intuitive level, can’t accept it.

There is an interesting branch of psychology called “Intuitive Physics.” It covers things like “impetus” and the idea that a ball thrown from a carousel ought to follow a curved path. It examines how our minds tend to interpret reality.

The .999… issue is, really, more of a psychological matter than a mathematical one. The math is settled. It’s the mental state of those who reject the math that is of some interest.

(Hell, I know people who still insist that the “Three men rent a hotel room for $30” thing is impossible to be explained by mathematics!)

[friedo]

@sich_hinaufwinden

We can say ‘‘Hey, there’s an infinite amount of numbers between 0.999… and 1 if they aren’t equal, so just show us any one of those to prove that. If there’s an infinite amount to choose from it should be relatively easy to do so.’’

I’m not just trying to nit pick here. I think it helps drive home your point - one that’s already been made about …999.999… times so far, among others, in the GQ thread.

Yep, absolutely right.

[Senegoid]

@Colibri

Actually, 2+2 = 5, for sufficiently large values of 2.

@Colibri

It’s an old math joke about rounding errors. If you are rounding to integers, 2.4 gets rounded down to 2. But 2.4 + 2.4 = 4.8, and 4.8 gets rounded up to 5.

OMG! No sooner do we have a Pit thread discussing the endless discussion of the value of 0.999… than we have Colibri bringing up this old favorite again!

“2+2=5 for large values of 2” Huh? started by SuaSponte in GQ, 05-08-2007. (And it was none other than Colibri who closed that thread!)

They argued till they were blue in the pixels over what the joke really means, and never came to a consensus. Of course, I was of the other point of view on that.

[Zakalwe]

So, if you have a joke (J) that is a member of the set Funny (F), then explaining J makes it not F?

[Colibri]

@Senegoid

They argued till they were blue in the pixels over what the joke really means, and never came to a consensus. Of course, I was of the other point of view on that.

Of course, you could use this thread (and the one that spawned it) to demonstrate that no proposition on this board ever “comes to a consensus.” There will almost always be someone found to argue an erroneous position until everyone is “blue in the pixels” (probably purple in this case). There is no position so wrong that someone won’t argue in favor of it.

[Freddy_the_Pig]

Aaaaaaand the mother thread cracks the 1,500-post barrier! Or should I say, the 1,499.999 . . . -post barrier.

[Freddy_the_Pig]

I see also that the mother thread is getting close to 100,000 views. I think there should be a prize for the 100,000th viewer. But, I’m not sure what that prize should be.