this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023

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What's the simplest thing humans are too dumb to grasp? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

216 comments fedilink hide all child comments

You ever see a dog that's got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it's never going to make the connection.

Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.

Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

One way to tell if two numbers are equal is to show there’s no real number between them. Try to formulate a number that’s between 0.999… and 1. You can’t do that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

But between 0.999 and 1 is 0.9999.

If something comes ever increasingly close to, but never physically touches something else, would you say it’s touching it?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

0.999… means infinitely repeating 9s. There’s no more 9 to add that hasn’t already been added. If you can add another 9, then it’s not infinitely repeating.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So it never ends, and it stays 0.9… infinitely?

Still not a 1.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It's an infinite number of nines after the decimal.

Or think of it another way. What number would you subtract from 1 to get 0.999... ? The answer is 0.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

let x = 0.999...

so 10x = 9.999...

subtract first line from second:

9x = 9

divide by 9

x = 1

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

an asymptote 😎