Is 0.999... = 1? (spoiler alert: no it is not)

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You may have encountered the popular claim that \( 0.999... = 1 \), where the three dots signify that the decimal continues forever. This is a somewhat weird claim, since it would mean that mathematics is broken. There should be no way for two different numbers to have the same value. What makes it weirder is that this is quite popular claim. I've even seen mathematicians say that it's true! But is it though? One popular proof is to first denote \( S = 0.999...\) and then multiply by \(10\) to get \( 10S = 9.999...\) and subtract \( S \) from it, to get  \( 10S - S = 9.000...\) and finally dividing by \(9\) yields  \( S = 1.000... = 1 \) and we see that  \(0.999... = 1\)! However, there's a problem. This short derivation is not strictly speaking correct. It is veeeery close to being correct, and to see why let's look at finite decimals first. Let's say that \(S = 0.999\) (note that this is not the same as \(S = 0.999...\) ). Let's do the same trick as ...
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Messing around in the lab

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What did the MythBusters ultimately teach us? "Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down." A picture is worth more than a thousand words, so I guess I was doing science after all, and lots of it!

Got that "evil genius" -thing going on.

I have been thinking of making a video series called: "Will it ablate?" in which I will put all kinds of things in front of an extremely powerful laser. I also have plans for some other videos as well, so stay tuned.

I made a youtube channel for the blog, and here are the fruits of the first filming day at the lab, hope you like it!









If you have some suggestion on what I should film next, throw me a comment!

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Is 0.999... = 1? (spoiler alert: no it is not)

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You may have encountered the popular claim that \( 0.999... = 1 \), where the three dots signify that the decimal continues forever. This is a somewhat weird claim, since it would mean that mathematics is broken. There should be no way for two different numbers to have the same value. What makes it weirder is that this is quite popular claim. I've even seen mathematicians say that it's true! But is it though? One popular proof is to first denote \( S = 0.999...\) and then multiply by \(10\) to get \( 10S = 9.999...\) and subtract \( S \) from it, to get  \( 10S - S = 9.000...\) and finally dividing by \(9\) yields  \( S = 1.000... = 1 \) and we see that  \(0.999... = 1\)! However, there's a problem. This short derivation is not strictly speaking correct. It is veeeery close to being correct, and to see why let's look at finite decimals first. Let's say that \(S = 0.999\) (note that this is not the same as \(S = 0.999...\) ). Let's do the same trick as ...
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