No point in using the name 0.999 repeating if that's not really what you mean.

retina said:

are you sure Plato said that? that is not even valid... i seem to remember something like that but it was an equivocation joke... like:

nothing is better than god
a ham sandwich is better than nothing
therefore a ham sandwich is better than god... valid except for the equivocation,

this however is nothing what so ever like that. this is not a play on words or some trick. it is just an exceedingly silly way to write 1 just like i could do it as 42/42 that is also = to 1

SlamGlam said:

Witches burn
So does wood
Wood floats on water
So do ducks
Therefore witches are made of wood and weigh the same as ducks

personally, I'm okay with both being true. If electrons can be both particles & waves, you can probably prove anything.

.999... is a concept as much as a number (being infinite and all), conceptually smaller than one (to me, at least), but practically (in mathematical applications) equal to 1

I'd be more inclined to drop the "conceptually" part if you could prove that 1 equals .999 as well:

x=1
10x=10
10x-x=10-1
9x=9
x=1 not .999

maybe there's a way to do it backwards?

purplerein said:

This is about the time my wife and mother in law came out of a store eating a nature made cake type thing. We had agreed, my wife and I, that there was to be no eating in this car, new volvo, so when my wife and her mother reached the car without having finshed their little treats, as they reached for the door handle, I hit the power locks button and told them to finish their little cakes first. That was the first and last time that happened

Steadwood said:

yeah 1.9999 (with infinitely repeating 9s) = 2


oops... nearly forgot

y + y = 2.000

Steadwood said:

SlamGlam said:

Steadwood said:

so you do you dissagree with 1.9999 (with infinitely repeating 9s) = 2 ?

Like I said... I'm no mathematician.. but I just can't see how one number can also equal another

Steadwood said:


the point is the 2 are the same number. 3/3 = 1 right?



yeah lots of people think the same thing

SlamGlam said:

Yeah... but .999 repeating isn't quite 1... though it is infinately smaller

What then is the closest number to 1 ?

Steadwood said:

No such number.

Yeah... but .999 repeating isn't quite 1...

though it is infinately smaller

coolcat said:

What is the closest value to 1?

Steadwood said:


yes it is. it is just another way to note the vlaue 1



huh?



yeah i noticed

0.9999 repeating doesn't make sense as a number until you use the concept of a limit.

0.9999 repeating doesn't make sense as a number until you use the concept of a limit.

Steadwood said:

If you pick any number other than 1, you can always find another number that is even closer to 1. So there isn't any closest number... You can always find another number even closer.

EDIT: It's kind of like how there's no biggest number. No matter how big a number you have, you can just add 1 to get a bigger number.
[Edited 12/27/06 14:51pm]

And even if (as I believe) the number is infinitely smaller than 1, that really still equals one for all intents & purposes. Once you actually get to infinity (which never happens, but if you could) you'd have 1.

NDRU said:

that sounds right to me... just like 0.33333 =/= 1/3 nor does 0.3333 *with a trillion 3s it is only when there are infinite 3s that you get to 1/3

SlamGlam said:

it's hard to understand "once you get to infinity" since you never really can. But infinity changes the rules a bit, and you can't think of .999... in the same terms as a finite number. That's what I was doing and why I didn't really accept it.

NDRU said:

but you know what 1/3 means and you understand that in desmil form is 0.333~ right? and any number 0.3 with < infinity 3s would not be the same as 1/3

coolcat said:

I'm starting to understand this. It's all about infinity.

When you look at .999... it's hard to appreciate that the 9's literally go infinitely--not a hundered decimal places, and not a million, but forever.

That's the only way the equasions work.

And even if (as I believe) the number is infinitely smaller than 1, that really still equals one for all intents & purposes. Once you actually get to infinity (which never happens, but if you could) you'd have 1.