Jim Langston wrote:
> Storm wrote:
>> Please bear with me if I am not following a protocal for the group.
>>
>> My step daughter is in 9th grade math (she is in 7th grade).
>> She asked me earlier in the week if .999 going off in to infinity is
>> the same thing as 1.
>>
>> I said no. Close...but no.
>> I am by far no pro at math.
>> She insists its the same, because her math teacher said so...
>>
>> But, I do seem to remember a math teacher telling me that
>> mathmatically, it can be the same as one. In reality it is not. He
>> told me to think of two lines. To be parallel, the need to be the
>> same distance apart...say 1. If they are .999999 apart...eventually
>> they will meet. And, no matter how far out you go in to infinity,
>> you still will not reach 1. Best I can think of is that this is a
>> mathmatical concept, that
>> exists on paper....
>> Can anyone here give an answer that makes sense to me, or her?
>> Thanks....
>
> I'm a programmer and some new programmers have a hard time with
> floating point numbers. Take, for example, the decimal number 0.1 In
> binary it is .000110011... with the 0011 repeating forever. It
> can not be accureatly represented in binary.
>
> There are some numbers in decimal that are the same. Such as 1/3
> which we write as 0.33333... We can not accurately write them in
> decimal.
> 0.9999999.... is one such number which comes from adding 1/3 three
> times. 0.33333333.. + 0.333333.. + 0.33333333... = 0.99999999999...
>
> Yet we know that 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1.
>
> 0.999999... doesn't really exist in nature, just as 0.333333...
> doesn't exist in nature, it is our mathematical system, the way we
> humans came up with a numbering system, it is not perfect. And
> because 0.99999999.. is not an accurate representation of the number
> we need to realize that the accurate representation is 1.0.
>
> Lets see how to convert 0.99999999 to a fraction.
>
> x = 0.9999999999
> 10x = 9.9999999999
> Right? So what is 9x? 10x - x
> 9x = 9
Just so you understand, I subtracted x from both sides.
10x - x = 9.9999999... - x
9x = 9
> divide both sides by 9
> (9x) / 9 = 9 / 9
> x = 1
--
Jim Langston
tazmaster@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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