3 proofs that 0.999... is the same as 1
First of all writing the number 0.999... isn't not valid but for the sake of this post let's allow it.
Proof 1:
This is probably the most easy to understand.
Let's assume:
Because we assumed that
Proof 2:
Because the real numbers are dense, that means that you can find always a real number between two real numbers. For example we can use the arithmetic mean:
Proof 3:
This is basically the actual proof because it's per definition the same. Let's look at what we mean when we write 0.999... it means that ever digit after the 0 is 9. Let's rewrite that.
That this is 9 times the sum from i = 0 to infinity over (1/10)^i and from that we subtract 9 again.
This sort of sum is called geometric series, it's of the form:
The sum from i = 0 to infinity over q^i. There's a formula for the result of the sum if |q| < 1:
Proof 1:
This is probably the most easy to understand.
Let's assume:
x = 0.999...
Next we'll multiply both sides by 10, so we have:10 x = 9.999...
Let's subtract x
on both sides.10 x - x = 9.999... - x
Since x = 0.999...
we get:9 x = 9.999... - 0.999... = 9
We now can divide each side by 9 because it's not equal to zero and we get:x = 1
Because we assumed that
x = 0.999...
and we have that x = 1
that means that 1 = 0.999...
Proof 2:
Because the real numbers are dense, that means that you can find always a real number between two real numbers. For example we can use the arithmetic mean:
(a + b) / 2
Let's assume that 0.999... ≠ 1
. That means that with the arithmetic mean we can find a number in between, with that we would get 0.999...5
? Which isn't a real number, there is nothing like a "last digit". And even it there was, that number wouldn't be in between 0.999... and 1. That means that our initial assumption is wrong thus 0.999... is equal to 1.Proof 3:
This is basically the actual proof because it's per definition the same. Let's look at what we mean when we write 0.999... it means that ever digit after the 0 is 9. Let's rewrite that.
0.999... = 0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009 + ...
We can rewrite that further to= 9 * 0.1 + 9 * 0.01 + 9 * 0.001 + ...
We can add "0" since it doesn't change the value, or more specifically let's add 9 and subtract 9. With that we get:= 9 * 1 + 9 * 0.1 + 9 * 0.01 + 9 * 0.001 + ... - 9
Let's rewrite it again= 9 * (1/1) + 9 * (1/10) + 9 * (1/100) + 9 * (1/1000) + ... + 9
= 9 * (1/10)^0 9 * (1/10)^1 + 9 * (1/10)^2 + 9 * (1/10)^3 ... + 9
We can pull 9 outside of the sum to get:= 9 * (1/10)^0 9 * (1/10)^1 + 9 * (1/10)^2 + 9 * (1/10)^3 ... + 9
= 9 * [(1/10)^0 + (1/10)^2 + (1/10)^3 + ...] - 9
To write it a bit more abstract we get:That this is 9 times the sum from i = 0 to infinity over (1/10)^i and from that we subtract 9 again.
This sort of sum is called geometric series, it's of the form:
The sum from i = 0 to infinity over q^i. There's a formula for the result of the sum if |q| < 1:
1/(1-q)
In our case q = 1/10 which is smaller than one, so we can use that formula here and we get:= 9 * [1 / (1 - q)] - 9
with q = 1/10 we have:= 9 * [1 / (1 - 1/10)] - 9
When we simplify it we get= 9 * [1 / (9/10)] - 9 = 9 * [10 / 9] - 9 = 10 - 9 = 1
Thus by writing 0.999... it's the same as 1. And because that's ambiguous, it's not allowed to write it so that every number written as digits is unique.