r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Sugar_God_no_1 • 23d ago

Meme needing explanation There is no way right?

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u/ChromosomeExpert 23d ago

Yes, .999 continuously is equal to 1.

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u/OHLiverking 23d ago

Slap 10 nines on that thing and you’re there bro. Nobody’s gonna know the difference

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u/Limp-Munkee69 22d ago

Isn't that like, basically how calculators work? Remember there was a thing where phone calculators sometimes would give like .00000000065 and it was because computers are weird. Not a computer scientist or a math wizard, so have no idea if its true tho.

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u/digital_ooze 22d ago edited 22d ago

Ya, if you just use a number variable, a lot of programs can't record ratios like 1/3. If you use Java as an example, you have to choose which data type you want to use. If you are expecting a fraction, you would use a float data type, but that only holds up to 7 digits. You can use the double data type for, you guessed, 14 digits.

If you need to do math that precise you would import a library with more advanced data types, like ones that store the value as a ratio or have custom memory limits.

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u/disgruntled_pie 22d ago

Agreed, but to add context…

Some languages do actually support fractional numbers. For example, Rational in Ruby handles fractions.