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Guest
Guest
I love that signature line and it has sparked quite an interesting discussion here as well I am far from being a math expert but I will put in my 2 cents worth anyway.
DeSilentio's proof that 2.99999... = 3 hinges on this assumption:
29.99999... - 2.99999... = 27
But is this true? The 9s in this example repeat FOREVER, and we as humans have no accurate way of expressing infinity. Every time you add another 9 to the number, you change it's value slightly. Only if you could literally do this forever would you find out the exact value for this number, but of course you can't. Consider the following:
2.99999... = 2.99999...
Well this seems like it should be true doesn't it? But since we can't follow those 9s out forever, we can't place an exact value on either side of that equal sign. The best we can say is that it MIGHT be true. But we can't prove it.
Therefor 29.99999... - 2.99999... may or may not = 27. Bad assumption. In reality we can't determine an exact value for 2.99999... any better than we can determine one for the square root of 1. Just because 2.99999... is predictable doesn't mean that it's definable.
Well, I will leave it at that for now and see what you all have to say... (-:
Cheers,
Warden
DeSilentio's proof that 2.99999... = 3 hinges on this assumption:
29.99999... - 2.99999... = 27
But is this true? The 9s in this example repeat FOREVER, and we as humans have no accurate way of expressing infinity. Every time you add another 9 to the number, you change it's value slightly. Only if you could literally do this forever would you find out the exact value for this number, but of course you can't. Consider the following:
2.99999... = 2.99999...
Well this seems like it should be true doesn't it? But since we can't follow those 9s out forever, we can't place an exact value on either side of that equal sign. The best we can say is that it MIGHT be true. But we can't prove it.
Therefor 29.99999... - 2.99999... may or may not = 27. Bad assumption. In reality we can't determine an exact value for 2.99999... any better than we can determine one for the square root of 1. Just because 2.99999... is predictable doesn't mean that it's definable.
Well, I will leave it at that for now and see what you all have to say... (-:
Cheers,
Warden