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

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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About

Welcome to my blog! I am Matias Koivurova, a researcher from the University of Eastern Finland and my main area of interest is photonics and coherence of light, although I dabble in other areas as well.  I'm sorry to disappoint, but if you are looking for some really smart person who will write about string theory, quantum gravity, or some other mediasexy topic, you will not find that here (those places can be found here and here).

What I will be covering is research that I find particularly interesting, and hopefully I can make some sense of it to some less science inclined people. I will also update the blog with info on my own research and I will write short stories about the process of making each of my published articles.

The name of the blog was inspired by my main area of research, which I think also describes my writing style. Partial coherence in photonics is often undesirable but can produce interesting phenomena; it remains to be seen whether the latter applies to my writing as well!

You can find me on ResearchGate, Google Scholar and LinkedIn.

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

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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