4 ms·

You have given me one of the best chuckles I've had in weeks. Thanks! Err... If you really wanted, you could probably use a search engine and figure out who I a

by KGIII 9y ago

You have given me one of the best chuckles I've had in weeks. Thanks! Err... If you really wanted, you could probably use a search engine and figure out who I am. I actually am a mathematician. But, you can keep your wager.

cgmg 9y ago
> I actually am a mathematician. But you don't know what a limit is?
- KGIII 9y ago
  Of course I do. It's rather contrived, now isn't it? We've effectively just said, 'Well, bugger it. We don't have to expand that.' We've all agreed it equals one. That's kind of silly. I can quote the rules, the reasons, and even helped to author the early versions of the Wikipedia article on the subject. I understand the textbooks, and they are silly. I haven't found the history of when this was discovered, so I have to speculate. I think it went a bit like this... Bob, that's his name, was smoking opium one day and pondering mathematics. On a hunch, he sat down at his desk and, between nods, he discovered that 0.999... = 1. This, of course, is absurd. After all, anyone would notice that the deception lies in the conversion to a fraction. But, we can't have that. Bob chose to keep it a secret. Except Bob was quite an opiate addict and only made it about a week before he started telling anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, so many people heard about it that the higher order of mathematicians decided they couldn't just assassinate Bob and, after all, he was right - and he could prove it! So, they thought long and hard. How could this be made true? How could this still be right and the order still be maintained? Eventually, a bright young neophyte named Hank piped up, 'Wait! I have it! Let's just imply a limit!' They all cheered and headed to the bar to buy Hank a round of drinks. Something like that. ;-) In an earlier comment you said you didn't have to expand it. You're right. You don't have to, but you can. There is no rule that prevents you from stepping up to the board and writing 9s until the heat death of the universe, only an imposition made to keep order. Kinda silly, isn't it? As I said above, mathematics is a language. You can say anything you want. Some of it is trivially proven false, though it is still useful.

by KGIII 9y ago

cgmg 9y ago

> I actually am a mathematician. But you don't know what a limit is?

KGIII 9y ago
Of course I do. It's rather contrived, now isn't it? We've effectively just said, 'Well, bugger it. We don't have to expand that.' We've all agreed it equals one. That's kind of silly. I can quote the rules, the reasons, and even helped to author the early versions of the Wikipedia article on the subject. I understand the textbooks, and they are silly. I haven't found the history of when this was discovered, so I have to speculate. I think it went a bit like this... Bob, that's his name, was smoking opium one day and pondering mathematics. On a hunch, he sat down at his desk and, between nods, he discovered that 0.999... = 1. This, of course, is absurd. After all, anyone would notice that the deception lies in the conversion to a fraction. But, we can't have that. Bob chose to keep it a secret. Except Bob was quite an opiate addict and only made it about a week before he started telling anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, so many people heard about it that the higher order of mathematicians decided they couldn't just assassinate Bob and, after all, he was right - and he could prove it! So, they thought long and hard. How could this be made true? How could this still be right and the order still be maintained? Eventually, a bright young neophyte named Hank piped up, 'Wait! I have it! Let's just imply a limit!' They all cheered and headed to the bar to buy Hank a round of drinks. Something like that. ;-) In an earlier comment you said you didn't have to expand it. You're right. You don't have to, but you can. There is no rule that prevents you from stepping up to the board and writing 9s until the heat death of the universe, only an imposition made to keep order. Kinda silly, isn't it? As I said above, mathematics is a language. You can say anything you want. Some of it is trivially proven false, though it is still useful.