I like nines too

[prog]

Today's Wikipedia article of the day is about the number 0.999... and its equality to 1. I did not know this!! What a fine thing to think about.

Comments

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

You did not know that .999... = 1? Huh. I'm a math nerd, of course, so.

[prog.livejournal.com]

It's quite clear when spelled out (which that article does quite well), but nobody ever pointed it out to me before, and it's not like it's something I'd trip across myself one morning whilst making pancakes and contemplating the radii of strawberries.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

What are they teaching kids in school these days?

[prog.livejournal.com]

I do have memories of my fellow high school Algebra students' spikes coming out to protest the existence of i, but that's a useful (and unavoidable) mathematical tool.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I also did not know that and never had it pointed out. That's pretty neat though. And the simple proof explanations (well those that I understood--like fractions and algebraic) do seem quite clear.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

That equality is one of my favourite pointless maths things! I've even had arguments with people about it. The fervour with which people will disagree, despite all evidence, is staggering.

[prog.livejournal.com]

It's quite counterintuitive on its face! The article also covers many students' understandably mutinous reactions to first learning it; one researcher has deeply studied this specific phenomenon.

[taskboy3000.livejournal.com]

I guess that's why they're called irrational numbers. :-)

An interesting, if mostly useless fact. Still, I think I can win bar bets with this oddity.

[chocorisu.livejournal.com]

You're thinking of numbers like π. 0.999... is a rational: it's exactly equal to 1, or the fractions 9/9, 3/3 etc.