4 ms·
Hahaha, I like how they include: "If it is multiplied by 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, the answer will be ... 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7, or 6/7 respectively." Was it surprising t
by dstyrb 11y ago
Hahaha, I like how they include: "If it is multiplied by 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, the answer will be ... 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7, or 6/7 respectively."
Was it surprising to multiply 1/7 by two and get 2/7? Has science gone too far?
- misframer 11y agoThe point of that sentence, which you have excluded, was about the cyclical permutations.
- dstyrb 11y agoI said the clause was an unnecessary inclusion, the ellipses are there specifically to highlight that. The rest of the article is about the cyclicity of the digit.
- mikeash 11y agoYour ellipses completely change the meaning. The clause may be unnecessary (as is the entire article) but the bit you complain about is useful if you don't chop things out first.
- dstyrb 11y agoWell, not sure it was a complaint, I was just lightheartedly commenting that it was a bit redundant, but ok, umbrage seems a reasonable response. And yeah, that's pretty much the point of eliding bits of text, to put things together that weren't together before; I'm almost positive that's why we invented that specific punctuation mark. It's like saying: "The 35th president of the United States, JFK, who was widely known for the space race and the bay of pigs, was elected after the 34 presidents before him." And my comment is like: "The 35th president of the United States ... was elected after the 34 presidents before him."
- mikeash 11y agoMy point is that ellipses are for when you're excising something that is redundant to your purposes and whose omission doesn't change the overall meaning. Your example with JFK is fine. Here's a counterexample where it doesn't work: "JFK had an affair with Marilyn Monroe, who was a famous Hollywood actress." -> "JFK... was a famous Hollywood actress." I maintain that your shortened quote is more like this. The article says that 142857, when multiplied, produces numbers which correspond to the digits of 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, etc. Your version of the quote omits the words "correspond to," changing it from an observation about how an integer matches the decimal expansion of a fraction to an observation about how multiplying a number gets you a multiple of that number.
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- tomvbussel 11y agoAsk a random person if 1 and 0.999999... are the same number and most people will tell you they aren't the same number. Yet: 1 = 3 * (1/3) = 3 * 0.33333... = 0.99999... (they're also epsilon close for every epsilon larger than zero). So yes, this kind of stuff is surprising for a lot of people.
- partisan 11y agoI'd like to have everyone in the world give me their money and I will promptly return that money times 0.99999... They are the same number, after all.
- mikeash 11y agoAside from the obvious problems trustworthiness and transaction costs, what would be wrong with that?
- qu4z-2 11y agoI'd like to have everyone in the world give me their money and I will return that money times 1.0000000001 about a week later, after making bank off the interest. Sadly there seems to be no general enthusiasm for this plan. :) Also: Tell you what... you give me your account details, and I'll send you (1 - 0.9999...) times my money. Deal?