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Does 0.999999… equal 1.0?

Henry Imler September 17th, 2006

In the latest issue of Discover they did a little proof that 0.99999… does equal 1. This is how they did it.

  1. Take .999999 (repeating) to equal x.
  2. Take x times 10 equals 10x
  3. So 10x = 9.9999999
  4. 10x - x = 9x
  5. 9x = 9 (9.999999…. - 0.99999…. = 9)
  6. Therefore, x = 1 and .99999….

Crazy, no?

5 Responses to “Does 0.999999… equal 1.0?”

  1. #     Luis [Visitor]on 18 Sep 2006 at 9:05 pm

    old meme

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  2. #     Honzo [Member]on 18 Sep 2006 at 9:34 pm

    and? it is still pretty cool.

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  3. #     shawn [Visitor]on 19 Sep 2006 at 6:17 am

    Dumb. The only real number resembling ‘0.999(repeating)’ is a hyperreal number that is infinitely close to 1. Inifinite closeness is not identical to equality.

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  4. #     Honzo [Member]on 19 Sep 2006 at 7:51 am

    Ok Shawn,

    Where is the proof wrong? Do you have a counter proof?

    But all this is besides the point math snobs, it is just a neat little thing.

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  5. #     Virginie [Visitor]on 22 Sep 2006 at 7:09 pm

    shawn has a point. besides, that’s more like logic, and logic is cool and math isn’t. :P

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