• ArchAengelus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    26
    ·
    5 months ago

    In this context, yes, because of the cancellation on the fractions when you recover.

    1/3 x 3 = 1

    I would say without the context, there is an infinitesimal difference. The approximation solution above essentially ignores the problem which is more of a functional flaw in base 10 than a real number theory issue

    • Shampiss
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      24
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      The context doesn’t make a difference

      In base 10 --> 1/3 is 0.333…

      In base 12 --> 1/3 is 0.4

      But they’re both the same number.

      Base 10 simply is not capable of displaying it in a concise format. We could say that this is a notation issue. No notation is perfect. Base 10 has some confusing implications

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        5 months ago

        They’re different numbers. Base 10 isn’t perfect and can’t do everything just right, so you end up with irrational numbers that go on forever, sometimes.

    • chaonaut@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      This seems to be conflating 0.333...3 with 0.333... One is infinitesimally close to 1/3, the other is a decimal representation of 1/3. Indeed, if 1-0.999... resulted in anything other than 0, that would necessarily be a number with more significant digits than 0.999... which would mean that the ... failed to be an infinite repetition.