Re: .999... ?= 1

From: Robin Chapman (rjc_at_ivorynospamtower.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: 06/04/04 

Date: Fri, 04 Jun 2004 11:32:46 +0100

Eckard Blumschein wrote:

>
>
> Lance Lamboy wrote:
>
>> I am not familiar with holy numbers. Does this mean I am hell-bound?
>
> I have to apologize for misusing the word "holy". Admittedly, it is my
> gut feeling that some number fetishist are not open for any factual
> argument from outside Cantor's paradise.

And it's my gut feeling that we've all heard too much piffle
from a donkey fetishist.

> I am not hell-bent on being correct in any case.

Just as well.

> On the other hand, many rised questions seem to be unanswered so far.
> Maybe, there is a more convincing outcome to the problem how to split Q
> or IR into Q+ and Q- or IR+ and IR- without either leaving a neutral
> rest, in particular the number zero or arbitrarily attributing it to the
> positive or negative side.

I get it at last --- for some reason it offends you that zero
is neither negative nor positive. (Of course this says lots about
your psychopathology but nothing about numbers). It's a fact,
you'd better get used to it.

> I see zero having three aspects of equal value but different sign:
> minus 0.0 over bar
> just zero
> plus 0.0 over bar.

There we are....the all-too-familiar sight of the crass formalist
confusion of a number with a series of digits representing it.

> Isn't it
> nonsense

Yup! I've seen plenty of nonsense here.

> to exclude zero without excluding plus 0.0 over bar?
>
> Eckard Blumschein
>
> Eckard Blumschein

Aaaargh! there's two of you! :-( 

-- 
Robin Chapman, www.maths.ex.ac.uk/~rjc/rjc.html
"Lacan, Jacques, 79, 91-92; mistakes his penis for a square root, 88-9"
Francis Wheen, _How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World_

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Cantor Confusion
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  • Re: .999... ?= 1
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  • Re: Weierstrass
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  • Re: Do reals really have to be genuine numbers?
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