Matter /CAN/ be created!

[RJ 17]

That doesn't mean matter can be created though. It just means that .999 repeating is the same as 1.

But how can 0.999_ = 1 when 0.999_ is meant to represent a number infinitely close to 1 without actually being 1? Where does the extra 0.(insert infinite line of zeros)1 come from that bumps all the 9s ahead of it to 10s, thus making it 1?

0.0_1 = 0. Where did you get the idea that 0.9_ is infinitely close to 1 without being 1? If you want that number, write "1 - ε"

And what would that look like as a decimal? 0.999_

 

[CaptainKarma]

Alright, many of you have probably seen this before, but for those of you who haven't: get ready for some mathematical magic as I show you an old trick I learned back in highschool to algerbraeicly (spelling) prove that 0.999repeating actually = 1 by itself.

Start with x = 0.999rep

x = 0.999rep

Multiply both sides of the equation by 10

10x = 9.999rep

Subtract x from both sides.

9x = 9 (10x - x = 9x, 9.999rep - x (which was originally stated as = 0.999rep) = 9)

Divide both sides by 9

x = 1

You can also do this with fractions and logic.

1/3 as a fraction is equal to 0.333rep

2/3 as a fraction is equal to 0.666rep

3/3 as a fraction SHOULD equal 0.999rep....but as a fraction, having three thirds of something means you've got the whole thing, which equates to 1.



(on a side not...the Captcha required to post this contained the word "deleted" spelled backwards and upsidedown...what in god's name am I supposed to do there? (cycled through it) )

Alright hotshot, how do you go about creating matter?

All I've done is shown the algebraic proof that 0.999rep = 1, the mystery lies in finding where that extra 0.(insert infinite string of 0's)1 comes from to bump all the 9's up to 10's thus making 0.999rep = 1. If we can figure out where that extra decimal comes from, we will have absolute control over the entire universe.

The 0.....1 doesn't come from anywhere, it's meaningless. You can't have "an infinite line of zeros that end in 1", you cant even have "a nearly infinite line of zeros that ends in 1".

Your confusion comes from rationalising 0.999... as a really really long line that eventually terminates. It doesn't. It goes on forever. I kind of picture it as an infinitely growing line, so that whenever anything gets close to the terminal 9, another 9 appears next to it.

 

[bertster]

1 = 0.999...
its just another way of writing the same number. similar to how we write half as 0.5 but also 1/2 and also 2/4 etc without maths collapsing in on itself.

That's not necessarily true, if it was, then 2.999rep would = 3. But the proof given in my OP doesn't work in that case. It only works for 0.999rep = 1

2.9999...=x
29.9999...=10x
27 = 29.999-2.9999 = 10x-x = 9x
3=x

Therefore 3=2.999...

proof is basically identical

 

[Rblade]

That doesn't mean matter can be created though. It just means that .999 repeating is the same as 1.

But how can 0.999_ = 1 when 0.999_ is meant to represent a number infinitely close to 1 without actually being 1? Where does the extra 0.(insert infinite line of zeros)1 come from that bumps all the 9s ahead of it to 10s, thus making it 1?

0.0_1 = 0. Where did you get the idea that 0.9_ is infinitely close to 1 without being 1? If you want that number, write "1 - ε"

And what would that look like as a decimal? 0.999_

thats the problem, you CAN't express that as a decimal. only approach it. you'll get a wiggly '=' meaning 'roughly'

 

[WWmelb]

Any mathematician will tell you that .999... is equal to 1. This is because 0.000...1 does not exist. A mathematician could explain it better than I can.

The closest way that we can create matter is by converting energy into it. However, Mass and Energy must be conserved unless you want to get into insane multidimensional physics that is no more than conjecture.

The equation to Mass-Energy equivalence is E^2=m^2c^4 + p^2c^2.

Light has mass-energy equivalence depending on the energy of the photon. Measured in MeV (Mega electronVolts), energy is affected by gravity because of warping in space-time, as defined through general relativity.

A black hole has a definite mass, and in fact it can be calculated by the size of it's schwartzchild radius- radius of the event horizon. Equation is r=2GM/c^2. All matter has a schwartzchild radius, but most of them are contained within the actual particles itself.

F=GMM/r^2 cannot equal infinite. Even as you approach the center of a black hole it does not equal infinite. However, it approaches it asymptotically. In order for an object to have infinite gravitational attraction to another object, it must exist at the exact same location of the other object, a physical impossibility.

People, before you start spewing out physics, you should probably take a physics/astronomy course beforehand, instead of just looking at equations and thinking you know it.

Okay ... i need to find a physicist girlfriend... because a chick reeling that off in the bedroom would blow my freakin mind... lmao

 

[TilMorrow]

Sorry to burst your bubble mate but this thread has existed before with a similar title and it was annoying the first time it came round. Also why did you have to remind me of that equation, it was bad enough getting my head around it the first time. Though it's not a s bad as trig as it's never ending applications/equations. However now that I think about it that could have just been the first time I'd seen that thread and that it could have appeared before.

Wait a minute....

Oh god, this thread again.

Spoiler

I guess the image is missing "in a thread like this".

 

[AngryMongoose]

That doesn't mean matter can be created though. It just means that .999 repeating is the same as 1.

But how can 0.999_ = 1 when 0.999_ is meant to represent a number infinitely close to 1 without actually being 1? Where does the extra 0.(insert infinite line of zeros)1 come from that bumps all the 9s ahead of it to 10s, thus making it 1?

0.0_1 = 0. Where did you get the idea that 0.9_ is infinitely close to 1 without being 1? If you want that number, write "1 - ε"

And what would that look like as a decimal? 0.999_

Hepaderp? It has no decimal representation. For any decimal you create, you can find one closer (that's the hole point); but 0.9 recurring (which shall hence forth be referred to by it's proper name: 1) is not less than one.

 

[geizr]

Alright, many of you have probably seen this before, but for those of you who haven't: get ready for some mathematical magic as I show you an old trick I learned back in highschool to algerbraeicly (spelling) prove that 0.999repeating actually = 1 by itself.

Start with x = 0.999rep

x = 0.999rep

Multiply both sides of the equation by 10

10x = 9.999rep

Subtract x from both sides.

9x = 9 (10x - x = 9x, 9.999rep - x (which was originally stated as = 0.999rep) = 9)

Divide both sides by 9

x = 1

You can also do this with fractions and logic.

1/3 as a fraction is equal to 0.333rep

2/3 as a fraction is equal to 0.666rep

3/3 as a fraction SHOULD equal 0.999rep....but as a fraction, having three thirds of something means you've got the whole thing, which equates to 1.



(on a side not...the Captcha required to post this contained the word "deleted" spelled backwards and upsidedown...what in god's name am I supposed to do there? (cycled through it) )

I've seen this trick a couple times, and it is incorrect because it breaks cardinality. The key thing to realize is that infinity is not the same size in all cases. When you multiply x=0.9999rep by 10, you have increased the cardinality by 1 with a hidden zero all the way at the end. Thus, 10*x and x don't have the same cardinality. As a result, 10*x - x =/= 9.0000rep; there is a hidden 1 all the way at the last digit. Another way of seeing it is that 10*x =/= 9 + x because of the differences in cardinality. Consequently, 10*x - x = 9*x =/= 9.

To convince yourself of the cardinality problem, start with a finite number of digits and then extend the process by adding more digits. Keep going till you get to an infinite number of digits. You'll see that no matter how many digits you have, you always end up with an extra 0 after multiply by 10 and a remaining 1 after doing the subtraction in the last digit.

EDIT: I should have pointed out that cardinality is the size of a set, and it can be used to deal with infinite sets like 0.999rep.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

What do you mean by "an infinite"? People multiply infinitely long numbers together all the time. Theres this thing called, Pi, you may have heard of it.

Given I did a degree in Maths, yes I did. What you may not know is that such numbers are called equivalencies and are used as approximations. 0.9Rep x 10 = 10 because that is the only way to get .9Rep. (It's an infinite approximation in itself ; An asymptote to give it it's contextual definition)

What you may also remember from basic Trigonometry is that the radius and other calculations made from pi are rounded to the nearest two decimal places, because they are known to be inaccurate.

You may want to look up Calculus, Numerical Methods, Simultaneous Differential Equations and the works of Simon Singh.

Also Messers. Strunk and White.

 

[DasDestroyer]

It's not a "neat" mathematical magic trick - it's just someone fascinated about something they have no understanding of(infinity) trying to get attention and a large post count on their topic(as pointed out by Cracked).

Depending on how you look at it, it can be either that 0.999 repeating * 10 = 9.99 repeating 1 less time, ie. 0.999 becomes 9.99, 0.9999999 becomes 9.999999 etc. so when you subtract x you get 9.99-0.999=8.991
8.991/9 = 0.999
and similarly for any amount of 9's.

Or if you take repeating as a truly infinite amount of 9's, then 0.999 repeating, quite simply is 1, due to the nature of infinity.

 

[thylasos]

So... a misleading title to lead people into a thread where anyone who can understandthe topic already knows it, not to mention people (me) who've heard it, and simply accept it because they don't care enough about maths to consider it.

So... no discussion value, apart from pointing out that people who only use functional mathematics don't know complex mathematics, and that people will instinctively assume that numbers that aren't 1 aren't 1.

 

[Daverson]

0.9r doesn't equal 1 (obviously if one number was equal to another entirely different number all maths would cease to function correctly). The entire existence of recurring decimals when dividing by 3 is an anomaly in the base 10 number system, in base 9, 1/3=0.3 exactly. (Of course you get similar behaviour dividing by 2 in base 9)

Though I fail to see how this proves mass can just be generated. Mass can just be generated (and destroyed with much greater ease), but doing it is a bit more complex than simply cutting your sandwich into three equally sized pieces.

 

[Jonluw]

This topic just won't die will it?
Yeah, limits are cool. Fun.
Did you know that 1+ 0.5 + 0.25 + 0.125 ... etc. equals 2?

I don't see how that relates to matter being created from nothing.

 

[Tharwen]

But matter can be created and destroyed. Just ask a nuclear fission reactor.

 

[Dana22]

That doesn't mean matter can be created though.

We just need to learn to manipulate superstrings, thats all.

 

[RJ 17]

So... a misleading title to lead people into a thread where anyone who can understandthe topic already knows it, not to mention people (me) who've heard it, and simply accept it because they don't care enough about maths to consider it.

So... no discussion value, apart from pointing out that people who only use functional mathematics don't know complex mathematics, and that people will instinctively assume that numbers that aren't 1 aren't 1.

For the record, I've already been given my warning about having a misleading topic title. The reason I titled the topic as I did was specifically for the last part of your statement: to people not skilled in math, the 0.(infinite string of 0s)1 that makes 0.999_ = 1 seemingly comes from nowhere. However, as has been pointed out numerous times in this topic already: my math was flawed from the beginning. As for no discussion value, I beg to differ, as the topic has made it to 3 pages now.

But evidently some people just can't take a joke. Of course matter canNOT be created. If you honestly clicked on this topic thinking that you'd find some brilliant proof via ALGEBRA, of all things, that one of the most basic laws of physics is wrong, then I honestly feel sorry for you. (This being a message to everyone, not specifically the person I just quoted)

 

[tahrey]

Guess we haven't got many nuclear and/or particle physicists in this thread.

Matter is being created and destroyed at a high rate, constantly, along with antimatter. Electron-positron pairs pop in and out of existence all the time (they appear spontaneously, describe a mirrored arc thru space, and provided that nothing else interacts with one/other/both along the way, crash back into each other and annihilate in a puff of energy). Some radioactive materials chuck out a higher proportion of positrons (anti-electrons!) than most and this is the basis of the PET scanner - aka the Positron Emission Tomography machine.

That one is a natural occurrence. However it's entirely possible to generate matter by the input of energy to the right system (as someone else said on page 3, an exceedingly large amount of it - you would need as much to generate a gram of novel matter as would be released by annihilating a corresponding mass of matter & antimatter together. A well made bomb formed from that gram of stuff would make most thermonuclear weapons look like toys), though I conveniently forget what that is at this time

(It's been a while since I worked in the relevant field and i've got too many tabs open already to go dicking about in wikipedia, aight?)

As for the .9999 thing...... I don't see the relevance either. It's just a quirk of human, digital representation of the universe's analogue nature. It's a sampling error, if you like. One that gets ever smaller as you refine your digital representation to a more accurate level with more digits (same as sampling analogue data with more bits; something that would be 254.99609375 in a 16-bit system normalised to a 0-255 scale (or, 65279 without normalising) becomes quickly becomes 255 dead when you cut out some of the bits, especially when reducing to 8 bit. Similarly the universe holds 0.999 recurring to an infinite number of places; it trends to 1.0, but never reaches it. The limit here is one of our own perception, and of our number system. There could be room for a million and one 9's after the 0. when you spread your measurement out to encompass the planck length width of the entire universe, but if we only represent that with 999,999 nines, it becomes 1.0 ... the number under consideration hasn't changed, it's just that our representation of it is innaccurate.

Inaccurate representations rarely lead to the creation of novel matter, unless we're talking metaphorically.

 

[Woodsey]

Believe it or not, a quirk in maths that your teacher told you about in school does not equal a scientific breakthrough. This is worse than the responses to anything related to science by the Escapist newsroom, where a billion wannabe's cry out stuff that a scientist reppin' a PHD would have clearly already thought of.

snip

I lol'd.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

How has this got anything to do with matter being created? I thought you might be on about nuclear fusion, not a maths trick designed to confuse 15 year olds...

 

[burningdragoon]

How has this got anything to do with matter being created? I thought you might be on about nuclear fusion, not a maths trick designed to confuse 15 year olds...

No. A 15 year old shouldn't be tricked at all. For one, it's not a trick at all, and two, I learned this in math class when I was like 11 and I understood it then.