this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
615 points (92.5% liked)

Memes

45550 readers
1648 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You are correct and I am wrong, I always assumed it to mean the same thing as a limit going to infinity that goes to 0

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's a weird concept and it's possible that I'm using it incorrectly, too - but the context at least is correct. :)

Edit: I think I am using it incorrectly, actually, as in reality the difference is infinitesimally small. But the general idea I was trying to get across is that there is no real number between 0.999... and 1. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you did use it right tho. It is a infinitesimal difference between 0.999 and 1.

"Infinitesimal" means immeasurably or incalculably small, or taking on values arbitrarily close to but greater than zero.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The difference between 0.999... and 1 is 0.

It is possible to define a number system in which there are numbers infinitesimally less than 1, i.e. they are greater than every real number less than 1 (but are not equal to 1). But this has nothing to do with the standard definition of the expression "0.999...," which is defined as the limit of the sequence (0, 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ...) and hence exactly equal to 1.