Quote (zekfi @ Jul 18 2010 09:34am)
Nice try, but on the number line (which is the most important factor here) 1 is 1.000000000000000000000000....
.999999999999999999.... just gets closer and closer and closer and closer to 1, but never actually hits it.
Just because there is no number between does not mean they automatically equal each other. they can be next to each other -.-
Proofs like that end up rounding just the slightest. The proof may round up to the nearest 1000th, and in that case, it would indeed be 1.
Wrong on (almost) every point.
.999... is a number. Thus it cannot 'get closer and closer and closer' to 1. Numbers don't get closer to other numbers. Numbers don't move. [Functions and sequences can be described as getting closer and closer.]
So you understand that there is no number between 1 and .999... Good. That is both a
necessary and
sufficient condition for two numbers being EQUAL. The SAME. [Not "next to each other." That makes no sense. They either are the same or aren't. Being "next to each other" means there is some distance between them - and hence different numbers. This is not the case for 1 and 0.999...]
In fact, a satisfactorily rigorous mathematic proof that .999... = 1 would be *precisely* to show that the distance between the two numbers is zero.
There's no rounding going on anywhere at all. None.
Try to back up what you say with some arguments next time and I'll gladly show you how you're wrong again.