One of my colleagues at work recently told me that point nine recurring is less than one. I'm interested to hear what people here say.
One of my colleagues at work recently told me that point nine recurring is less than one. I'm interested to hear what people here say.
FWIW it's hard to imagine the mind that wouldn't believe in the axiom of choice but would believe in .999 == 1 being a good phrase to use; that person would probably say
- 'I have a procedure for constructing a # arbitrarily close to 1, and if you tell me how close to 1 you want it i'll tell you how many steps of my procedure you need to execute'
I've meanwhile looked at some of your other recent comments, and it appears that you have rather stronger math background than I, and could well explain why your colleague's opinion is indeed not a fact. Or just refer your colleague to the excellent Wikipedia article on the subject linked to by another participant here. Is there a work issue that turns on how people at your workplace interpret 0.99999 . . . ?
There are users of our systems who have similarly strong beliefs that I simply can't fathom. I'm interested in seeing what positions people take, and how they argue them. I'm learning a lot from this forum, specifically because it is not a random sample of ordinary people.
Linguists learn the most from pathological examples of maltreatment. Likewise, I'm learning a lot by probing the corners of the beliefs of non-typical people.
And there is an issue at work that uses similar analysis as that required by this question. More detailed, more complex, less obvious, but it boils down to a similar point. As his boss I can pull rank and tell him to do it as I say, but I'd rather engender understanding.