Originally posted by ALLis0NE
1 - .9 = .1
1 - .99 = .01
1 - .999 = .001
1 - .9999 = .0001
1 - .99999... = ?????
I don't need a calculator to know the above answer. It just simple logic, that no matter how many 9's I add, the answer will always have a 1 at the
end. Why is it only different with a never ending decimal REPRESENTATION for you people? Is it because the answer goes against your beliefs of
infinity?
A calculator CANNOT give you the above answer. There IS NO ANSWER. You CANNOT subtract that.
0.999... + 0.99...1 (or 1 - 0.00...1) DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING because the first has INFINATELY REPEATING 9's While the second is a limit of nines that
ends with 1. You are confusing 0.00...1 with 0.00...1... which never ends and doesn't (i.e. CANNOT) have a "1" at the last place:
0.00...1...1...1... (see?, no "LAST PLACE" EVER EXISTS) unless you make it a limit of infinity. You are not grasping the concept of infinity. There
is no last place, no "remainder" no anything that you can operate at from the "process" unless you are dealing with more advanced math (which you
haven't been espousing in your argument at all, so one must assume that you are not familiar with certain axioms of set and limit theory [e.g. The
Axiom of choice])
I'm not going to say you don't understand BASIC math as others have (because it is OBVIOUSLY not BASIC math [those people are being very pretentious
and pompous], but you obviously have not taken anything above high school ALGEBRA (If you have, then you missed the finer points of function limits in
college algebra). There is absolutely no way that you have taken trig or calculus (if you have, you must have learned it completely by ROTE)
I know, at first it DOES seem counter-intuitive. There really is NOTHING to be embarassed about if you don't understand it. I minored in Mathematics
(and a bit more as it was initially my major) when I went to college, and thought it was absurd at first (when I learned it in highschool!), but that
was just do to ignorance of the the decimal system. 0.999... IS NOT a decimal (nor even a NUMBER [for the most part... [it can be, but not really..
haha]]) as I have said before. It looks like one, but it's a whole other concept of numbers. You really have to understand that even though 1/3 and
0.333... are the equal, they are completely different concepts. So is 0, and so is infinity (some would say 0=infinity [or 0.000...). Most people
never ever delve into any advanced mathematical concepts, so it is easier for practicality's sake and confusion to teach high school students hasty
generalizations of matematics.
All I can request that you do, again, is to enroll in a college algebra course (which will give you a BASIC understanding of LIMITS (something that
you are INTUITIVELY ascribing to the concept of INFINITY in this case), and take a Trig & Calc course that will further show you what you are not
grasping)
There IS A REASON why we have mathematics classes that extend FAR ABOVE what HIGH SCHOOL students are taught. You are going into a partially ADVANCED
(not really, but OK) CONCEPT such as 0.999... = 1 and saying that IT IS NOT TRUE. Yet, it is - but you will not accept it purely for lack of
understanding of mathematics (again, it is counter-intuitive)
Yet, like I said: Give me a number that you can add to 0.999... to make it equal 1.
You can't. There is nothing between the two - they are, in fact, the same number. 0.999... = 1.
You just need to accept that for the most part you are wrong, and fighting an uphill battle against logic and mathematical proof; however, you are
fighting a downhill battle ON THE SIDE of intuition - but intuition is wrong in this case.
Intuition (e.g. gut, feeling) is sometimes an evil creature that would lead us astray in our search for understanding of the universe.
This has nothing to do with a FLAW in the decimal (or "numerical" )system, because 0.999... is not a decima
. If you really want to know where it is on the number line. IT IS EXACTLY TO THE LEFT OF 1. 
