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0.999...= 1

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Re: 0.999...= 1

#531
post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you accept that 1/∞ = 0 Then you accept that ∞ * 0 = 1 But the definition of 0 is exactly that anything multiplied by it must be 0. So this cannot be true. To take a more verbal route: you cannot take nothingness and repeat it. Repeating (or multiplying) nothingness (or 0) is fundamentally nonsense. Programmer explanation: one cannot loop through `null` even once, let alone a large number.

No, you don't have to accept that. In my Analysis 2 course we worked a whole bunch with [0, ∞], i.e. the positive real numbers together with infinity, and we defined 1/∞ = 0 and ∞ * 0 = 0. You lose some of your usual rules of arithmetic, but it gets a lot easier to talk about integrals.

There are some weird rules like that for floating point numbers too.

Re: 0.999...= 1

#532

There is no proof that will ever satisfy a person dead-set against this. Ever since I brought this home from school as a child, my whole family ribbed me mercilessly for it. If you tell a person that 3/6 = 1/2, they'll believe you - because they have been taught from an early age that fractions can have multiple "representations" for the same underlying amount. People mistakenly believe that decimal numbers don't hav…

There isn’t a proof because it’s actually kind of arbitrary that 0.999... = 1. Fundamentally, this is true because we chose it to be true. Now, there are good reasons we chose it to be true, and that’s what people usually use as proofs. If it’s not true then a bunch of mathematical expressions become more inconvenient. But there is no reason as such why 0.999... could not have been defined as something that was alway…

You are downvoted, but you are actually correct. 0.999... != 1 can be true in nonstandard analysis. So if using standard analysis over nonstandard analysis is a convention, then ultimately 0.999... = 1 is a convention too.

(The Wikipedia article even reproduces that argument)

Re: 0.999...= 1

#533
post #240

There is no proof that will ever satisfy a person dead-set against this. Ever since I brought this home from school as a child, my whole family ribbed me mercilessly for it. If you tell a person that 3/6 = 1/2, they'll believe you - because they have been taught from an early age that fractions can have multiple "representations" for the same underlying amount. People mistakenly believe that decimal numbers don't hav…

One way to introduce the idea that a number represented as decimal digits can have multiple representations is to talk about the numbers 1 and 1.0 being exactly the same. And that 1.00 is the same as 1. Just like 0, 0.0, and 0.00 are the same number. Most people would agree at this point. Then keep stretching the number of zeroes to 0.000... - which, again, is exactly the same as 0. From there, it is not a huge stret…

The real question is what do you get if you add:

0.999 ... infinite number of 9s ... 9

and

0.000 ... infinite number of 0s ... 1

Re: 0.999...= 1

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't grok infinity until I started thinking in terms of verbs rather than nouns. As a static number, the concept of infinity makes no sense; but once reimagined as a process (start counting up from 1, and never stop), all apparent paradoxes disappear. This is the inverse problem: it could just as easily be reframed as 0.000...0001 = 0. Defined as static nouns (does such a thing exist in nature?), it's seemingly p…

> it could just as easily be reframed as 0.000...0001 = 0 But it can't be, because there's nothing after "0.000..."; that ... goes on infinitely. It's literally "0s forever, never stopping". It's not a process of "keep adding 0s", it's the end result of never adding 0s. It's not a process, it is a noun.

0.000...1 can be written as 1/inf, which has sense in Surreal Numbers math.

Re: 0.999...= 1

#535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Base 12 is a better base overall. It is divisible by more numbers. That is why it is used in various monetary, time and measurement systems. It's the one issue I have with the metric system... But that ship has sailed :) look up the dozenal society if you're curious how fervent some supporters might be.

The Babylonians though it was 60. (But imagine having to remember additional 50 numeric characters.)

> remember additional 50 numeric characters

The numerals are not distinctly varied like our Arabic numerals. Quite the opposite, they are repetitive and completely systematic and require 80% less effort to remember.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Babylonian_numerals....

Re: 0.999...= 1

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I figured it out, kind of. [I don't really know what I'm talking about either.] 1.000...0 = 1 1.000...05 = 1 + ε/2 1.000...1 = 1 + ε 0.999...8 = 1 - 2ε 0.999...9 = 1 - ε 0.999...98 = 1 - ε/5 . . .

> 0.999...8 = 1 - 2ε > 0.999...98 = 1 - ε/5 cough

Sure, why not? Different notations for different surreal numbers. But it's not actually a good notation; I wouldn't know how to write 1 + 10ε.

Re: 0.999...= 1

#537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean with "real" in that sentence? Because in the context of maths, a real number is "a number in ℝ", which this absolutely qualifies for. Whereas in plain English the term doesn't really have a clear definition. You might consider "real" numbers (in plain English) to mean physically measurable quantities, but there are plenty of numbers that we can write out because they're infinitely long,…

Infinities are difficult and your explanation is wrong. This notation .666...7 is meaningless. The notation .666... indicates a decimal representation that does not end. The representation has infinitely many sixes and does not end. If there is a 7 in the representation then it must be at a specific decimal. If it was at the end of the representation then it would be a finite decimal representation. The notation is m…

I don't agree with you, or with the sibling comment that claims that "infinity plus one" is "nonsense". It is in fact precisely well-defined, to a mathematician working in a framework that admits it and makes it worth discussing.

The blog post that (I think) started off this chain of posts, at https://blog.plover.com/misc/half-baked.html , has the most concise and lucid explanation I've found, so I'm just going to straight-up copy it: 0.666...7 is an “an object... said to ‘have order type ω+1’, and is completely legitimate.”

It's not very useful – it's exactly equal to 0.666... ! – but it's legitimate and well-defined.

My absolute favorite construction of objects like this is Conway's surreal numbers. These things appear perfectly naturally in the surreal numbers, and are completely well-defined, if (again) not very useful.

Re: 0.999...= 1

#539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn’t a proof because it’s actually kind of arbitrary that 0.999... = 1. Fundamentally, this is true because we chose it to be true. Now, there are good reasons we chose it to be true, and that’s what people usually use as proofs. If it’s not true then a bunch of mathematical expressions become more inconvenient. But there is no reason as such why 0.999... could not have been defined as something that was alway…

.999... and 1 exist on a continuous line. If they are different numbers, name a number between them.

The Wikipedia article says how, you need a definition of real numbers that includes nonzero infinitesimals (IOW does not satisfy the Archimedian property).

So let there be an ω with 0.999... = 1 - 1/ω. Then a number between 0.999... and 1 would be 1 - 0.5/ω.

Re: 0.999...= 1

#540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean with "real" in that sentence? Because in the context of maths, a real number is "a number in ℝ", which this absolutely qualifies for. Whereas in plain English the term doesn't really have a clear definition. You might consider "real" numbers (in plain English) to mean physically measurable quantities, but there are plenty of numbers that we can write out because they're infinitely long,…

Infinities are difficult and your explanation is wrong. This notation .666...7 is meaningless. The notation .666... indicates a decimal representation that does not end. The representation has infinitely many sixes and does not end. If there is a 7 in the representation then it must be at a specific decimal. If it was at the end of the representation then it would be a finite decimal representation. The notation is m…

This reasoning is understandable, but also incorrect, and we can point to where it breaks down: the idea that the 7 is "at a specific decimal" doesn't hold true, due to that pesky ellipsis. The crazy bit about the infinite repetition is that the 7 in 0.666...7 is not at a specific decimal. It's not even at "the last decimal" because there is no last. So, let's show this via a proof by contradiction:

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1. we assert that 0.666...7 is a sequence of digits.

2. we assert that each digit in a sequence can be assigned an integer index corresponding to its position in the sequence. I.e. we can defined each digit's index as "the number of digits that precede this digit".

3. from (1) and (2) it follows that the index for 7 must be an integer.

4. the ellipses represents an infinite number of digits (infinitely repeating the repeated digit pattern preceding it).

5. from (2) and (4) it follows that the index for 7 must be the integer value "infinity", because it has an infinite number of digits preceding it.

6. (3) and (5) cannot both be true, because infinity is not an integer.

7. from (6) it follows that (1), and/or (2), and/or (4) must be false

8. (4) is, by definition, true.

9. from (7) and (8) it follows that (1) and/or (2) must be false.

10. (1) is our fundamental assertion. If (1) was false then there is wouldn't even be a sequence of digits for us to reason about. So (1) is true.

11. from (6), (8), and (10) it follows that (2) must be false for there to be no contradiction.

QED

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Now, certainly, for finite length numbers the assumption that each digit in a sequence has an integer index holds true, but it turns out we have mathematical notation that lets us write down numbers for which that property does not hold.

Infinities are fun. And difficult. But also fun.

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