Active Users:342 Time:09/07/2025 04:37:12 PM
Continuing the Math Theme, WTF Is Up with the Seven? - Edit 1

Before modification by Joel at 25/05/2010 02:13:32 AM

I mean, I'm REALLY not one of those guys who gets all mystical about numbers; I understand that they merely represent real world physical relations, and all the "mystical" BS is just our failure to recognize some of them. There's nothing "magical" about the fact 2+2=2X2=2^2, it's just the nature of those functions and the number itself, just as when 3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3=3X3X3=3^3. It would take too long than anyone but me wants to spend explaining why 1/3^4 gives the first ten integers, in order, as a decimal, but I DO understand it (generally speaking. ) It makes sense, just as a the numerator of a fraction with denominator 9 should be itself as a repeating decimal; dividing by 9, after all, is the same as dividing by 10-1.

So why does 1/7 become 0.142857...? Even the part with the final digits being 5 and 7 rather than 5 and 6 makes a kind of sense, just as 1/81=0.123456790... because 10 comes after 9, which carries over to make the 9 a 10 as well, which carries over to make the 8 a 9, hence 0.123456790... instead of continuing with the 8; it's still there, but the nature of the rest of the number "disguises" it. But 1/7, I've looked at it every which way for years and it doesn't make sense why it does that, why one single function performed on single digit integer can yield a far more complex repeating decimal. Even 1/6 makes sense; it's just half of 1/3. But you can't do that with 7; it's prime. It just keeps getting weirder....

Suggestions, O Math Gurus...?

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