Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "9.999... really is equal to 10" video.

  1. Chris Seib In other words, you lack the intelligence to form a cogent argument and are lashing out because you're not bright enough to do anything else.
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  2. +Chris Seib, way to prove my point for me. Knowing that 9.999.... is 10 is hardly something that is necessary to build a house.
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  3. The only detail about this that I can't accept is the assumption that the timing device is an infinite number of 9s, as that's not really how precision works with measuring devices. However, if we ignore that and assume that it is in fact an infinite string of 9s the way that a calculator would express it, then the rest of it follows, even if it does seem weird to those that haven't thought about it. And in any practical situation, they'd be forced to round that up to 10 as they don't have the necessary precision to declare it to that many decimal places. With standard TVs they can at best measure it to either 1/20th of a second or 1/29.9th of a second depending upon what format of TV they're using. In either case it would get rounded to 10 seconds. 9.99999... needs to be the same as 10 for the reason you stated that 3.3333... needs to be 4/3 as it would break calculations if it wasn't. That's also why calculators generally carry at least one extra digit that they don't show you, so that if they need to round they'll have the precision to know that 3.33333333x3 is 4 and not 9.99999999. or something of that sort. Excellent video +1
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  4. Chris Seib I get that, I often times do things just to do them, but it's also important to not lose sight of the fact that math for the sake of math doesn't really do anything particularly useful. At the end of the day, if the precision of the math outstrips the use it's being put to, you haven't really gained anything.
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  5. Chris Seib No I haven't. That's an attribution error. Whether it's beautiful or horrendously ugly depends in large part on where you look and what you prioritize. Some things, such as trig, can be incredibly elegant if looked at the right way, but other things like many of the integrals, are just ugly no matter how you look at it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and math for the sake of math is mostly just a form of unchecked curiosity. Yes, it does drive things forward, but a bit of perspective is in order. It's very easy for that curiosity to wind up giving you useless wankering.
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