Timeline for Is it time to retire the 0.999=1 question (and other historical questions)
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
20 events
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| May 23, 2017 at 12:39 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://stackoverflow.com/ with https://stackoverflow.com/
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:22 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://math.stackexchange.com/ with https://math.stackexchange.com/
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| Mar 20, 2017 at 10:32 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.stackexchange.com/ with https://meta.stackexchange.com/
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| Dec 18, 2016 at 19:24 | comment | added | quid | I do not see how you can maintain the historical lock on math.stackexchange.com/questions/151938/… given what you say here. Maybe you want to reconsider your earlier action or this answer. | |
| Dec 17, 2016 at 23:05 | comment | added | Carl Mummert | "Quite frankly, I don't see under what guise we can lock the question while at the same time adhering to the proper use of this tool." - as a community-run site, we can determine what we want to use the lock took for, so if we decided to use it here, I would view that as a proper use. We can't control the details of exactly what the lock tool does, of course, but we can decide which questions we'd like to apply it to. I'm not sure if it is the right tool in for the 0.999 question, but I do think the community has the prerogative to decide if we want to use it that way. | |
| Dec 17, 2016 at 18:14 | comment | added | quid | @BrianM.Scott "People who ask this question are obviously not ‘happy with the result’." That's obviously not at all clear. They may just as well never have heard that argument or more likely have forgotten it. Or did not realize it applies to this situation. Again what you say strengthens my point. If somebody knows that argument and is still not convinced it is a question different to one from somebody searching for any explanation. This distinction should be made in Qs. That's my point and you continue to confirm it. | |
| Dec 17, 2016 at 18:06 | comment | added | Brian M. Scott | @quid: People who ask this question are obviously not ‘happy with the result’. Whether they realize it or not, they are in effect asking how the decimal representation of numbers with no finite decimal expansion really work. Being able to perform that algorithm correctly certainly does not entail such understanding. | |
| Dec 17, 2016 at 13:30 | comment | added | quid | Sorry I forgot part of the argument in the penultimate comment, to @BrianM.Scott : school children do learn to convert rationals to (periodic) decimals and the other way around. They apply the thus learned technique to many examples and "everyone" is happy with the result. This particular one is not really special. The result on gets for $0.9\ldots$ using this technique is just $1$ as you of course know. This may or may not be explained with sufficient rigor, but that's true for most things in school math. In that sense I am doubly puzzled what your issue with my assertion was. | |
| Dec 17, 2016 at 11:56 | comment | added | quid | @Asaf yes. The specific problem is that the question lacks context and this lack of context makes it too broad (allowing too many answers). Several versions of this question could coexist. | |
| Dec 17, 2016 at 11:49 | comment | added | quid | @BrianM.Scott your comment adds to my critique of the question in its current form, namely that it suffers from not spelling out the level of rigor at which answers is desired (there is not even a clue towards it). The sane thing to do would be to close this one as too broad, and allow spin-off. That said, I maintain that summing the geometric series $aq^n$ with $a=9$ and $q = 0.1$ is a textbook exercise for school children. | |
| Dec 17, 2016 at 10:33 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila Mod | @Brian, quid, ArJaFi: I don't think anyone is arguing that asking whether or not $0.\bar 9=1$ is appropriate. If anything the argument is that this specific question (which is probably a seed question from the first days of the site?) is subpar when judged in 2016 standards. While we're not going to pretend that all old questions should be closed, this one pops up often enough to consider locking it is not necessarily a bad idea. | |
| Dec 17, 2016 at 2:09 | comment | added | Brian M. Scott | @quid: No, it is not a textbook exercise for schoolchildren, unless you accept one of the superficially convincing pseudo-answers like $1=3\cdot\frac13=3\cdot0.\overline{3}=0.\overline{9}$. Schoolchildren don’t generally get more than a hand-waving explanation of the decimal representation of irrational numbers to start with. In any case the question is a very common point of entry to a fundamental structural feature of the representation of real numbers using positional notation and as such is obviously appropriate here. | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 20:16 | comment | added | quid | "I honestly didn't consider that it might have been locked at some previous point." I had mentioned it explicitly in a comment in this very meta thread. :-/ | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 19:56 | comment | added | user642796 Mod | [...inued] It may be a textbook exercise, but there is something more intrinsic about the question than, for example, "What is the remainder when $10^{5^{102}}$ is divided by $35$?" At any rate, I do not agree with locking this question for historical significance (or any other reason now available), so those wishing it locked will have to badger one of the other eight. | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 19:52 | comment | added | user642796 Mod | @quid I honestly didn't consider that it might have been locked at some previous point. The moderator timeline for that question is rather busy, and I searched for what I thought were relevant data: reviews, close votes, and reopen votes. To be more complete, yes the question was locked (without any stated specified reason, a functionality that no longer exists) from 18 Aug 2010 until 27 Mar 2014. The three now aged-away close votes (and two close vote reviews) occurred about 2 months after the unlocking. [cont...] | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 19:21 | comment | added | quid | I find your attempt at being more complete rather misleading given the fact, which you somehow do not consider as relevant enough to acknowledge it, that the question was locked for the larger part of its lifetime up to this day. Plus, it is a textbook exercise, for school children no less. | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 18:31 | comment | added | J. M. ain't a mathematician | "...the question was closed shortly after it was asked." - The older meta thread, for reference. | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 13:07 | comment | added | user642796 Mod | @quid: To be a bit more complete, the question was closed about 9 hours after being asked, and then reopened about 3 hours after that. Since that time it has received three close votes (all in July 2014), and went through the close votes review queue twice (resulting in 6 "leave open" votes, and 1 close vote). I think there is something to be said about the intrinsic interest of this question. This alone sets it apart from the often artificial questions copied from textbooks/assignments/exams/contests. | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 10:56 | comment | added | quid | To reiterate the question was closed shortly after it was asked. Plus, it lacks context, which makes it so overly broad (allowing too many answers). One can easily argue "it is not considered a good, on-topic question for this site." IMO it's at best borderline. How sure are you the question would not be closed when asked now (disregarding dupe)? Either way, it was considered as not up to the standards of the site in 2010. | |
| Dec 16, 2016 at 3:29 | history | answered | user642796Mod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |