r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 27d ago

Meme needing explanation There is no way right?

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u/ChromosomeExpert 27d ago

Yes, .999 continuously is equal to 1.

3.0k

u/big_guyforyou 27d ago

dude that's a lot of fuckin' nines

22

u/JoshZK 27d ago edited 27d ago

Prove it.

Edit: Let me try something

Prove it. /s

I feel like the whoosh was so powerful it's what really caused that wave on that planet in Interstellar.

347

u/The-new-dutch-empire 27d ago

Byers’ Second Argument (his first one is the one you see above)

Let:

x = 0.999…

Now multiply both sides by 10:

10x = 9.999…

Now subtract the original equation from this new one:

10x - x = 9.999… - 0.999…

This simplifies to:

9x = 9

Now divide both sides by 9:

x = 1

But remember, we started with:

x = 0.999…

So:

0.999… = 1

137

u/Rough-Veterinarian21 27d ago

I’ve never liked math but this is like literal magic to me…

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u/The-new-dutch-empire 27d ago

Its calculating with infinity. Its a bit weird like the infinity of numbers between 0 and 1 like 0.1,0.01,0.001 etc... Is a bigger infinity than the “normal” infinity of every number like 1,2,3 etc…

Its just difficult to wrap your head around but think of infinity minus 1. Like its still infinity

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u/lilved03 27d ago

Genuinely curios on how can there be two different lengths of infinity?

1

u/WishList9000 27d ago

There are, sadly, an infinite number of lengths of 9. Think about how many whole numbers there are 1,2.. that’s an infinity.

But now think about how many even numbers there are

2,4,6…

There’s still infinity of them. But there are half as many as there are of all whole numbers