In mathematics, the repeating decimal 0.999… which may also be written as or denotes a real number equal to one. In other words, the notations 0.999… and 1 represent the same real number. This equality has long been accepted by professional mathematicians and taught in textbooks. Proofs have been formulated with varying degrees of mathematical rigour, taking into account preferred development of the real numbers, background assumptions, historica...
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In mathematics, the repeating decimal 0.999… which may also be written as or denotes a real number equal to one. In other words, the notations 0.999… and 1 represent the same real number. This equality has long been accepted by professional mathematicians and taught in textbooks. Proofs have been formulated with varying degrees of mathematical rigour, taking into account preferred development of the real numbers, background assumptions, historical context, and target audience.
That certain real numbers can be represented by more than one digit string is not limited to the decimal system. The same phenomenon occurs in all integer bases, and mathematicians have also quantified the ways of writing 1 in non-integer bases. Nor is this phenomenon unique to 1: every non-zero, terminating decimal has a twin with trailing 9s, such as 28.3287 and 28.3286999…. For simplicity, the terminating decimal is almost always the preferred representation, contributing to a misconception that it is the...
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