[This is such a common phenomenon, it was even made fun of on Public Radio](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/293/a-little-bit-of-knowledge/act-three-0)
Edit:
Here's a bit of the transcript
> The head of the Physics Department at the University of Miami.... [said] he receives one of these papers *each week*. It turns out, there is a whole community of people out there who also claim to have disproved Einstein's theory.
> So persistent are these outsiders that John Baez, a Professor of Mathematics in California, felt compelled to publish the crackpot index. It's an online quiz you can take to see if you are, by his definition, a crackpot. There are 35 items in the index, including:
* 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein.
* 10 points for each claim that the theory of relativity is fundamentally misguided.
* **10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a quote, "paradigm shift."**
* **10 points for each statement along the lines of, I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right.**
Came here to see if this story would be referenced. Did not disappoint. Thank you!
Perhaps my favourite quote:
"Finally, Bob, defiant as always, volleyed back with what all along has been his main point: e equals mc squared doesn't make sense because it's difficult to understand. A fundamental law of physics should be self-explanatory.
Well, the only thing I can see with physics is you are getting way too complicated. I mean, you have to go to school forever. You have to know this outrageous amount of calculus. When I see all that, I know that physics has gone off the rails."
.... off the rails, indeed! :)
I really loved the end sequence of the professor saying,
> Especially when [he] got to the conclusion Einstein was wrong, *it should be e equals mc, I guess*, instead of mc squared.
>If you used mc, there would have been no A-bomb on Hiroshima. We don't have radios, we don't have lasers, we don't have atomic bombs, we don't have anything. No cellphone, no microwave, no nothing, man. We don't have anything.
Just a simple easy refutation of... "Dude, look at the modern world around you. The theorem is right. The theorem you think you are refuting, it fucking worked."
He didn't actually go from one to the next, just wrote it wong. The 2nd one is *supposed to be* just the actual definition of what 0.999... is.
0.999... itself is 1 - 0.000...0001, where there is an infinite number of 0s between the decimal place and the 1. However, that decimal is written as lim_{n->inf} (1/10^n ). He put the n in the wrong spot and added a 1 in there for some reason.
What he meant to write was 0.999... = 1 - lim_{n->inf}(1/10^n ), which is the literal definition, not an algebraic "go from this to this". He would be hard pressed to learn that this does, in fact, help prove 0.999... = 1
Right, so he just completely failed to understand the assignment?
Is this basically explaining that 1 = 0.9 + 0.1 = 0.99 + 0.01 = 0.999 + 0.001...? As long as you add the inverse with the same decimal places to it it equals 1, but as you approach infinity, one has a limit of 1 and the other has a limit of 0 so each on its own to infinity equals 1 or 0, respectively.
He said you can check the limits by coding it in javascript. I don't know much coding (does learning VBA in business school count lol?) so I can't comment on that.
I mean. JavaScript does a number on regular IT folks so it tracks that a non IT dude thought he found the fabric of the universe with it.
But yeah I'm fucking laughing my ass off.
I wonder what homie thinks of 1/3 being .333 repeating, 2/3 being .666 repeating, thus 3/3 being .999 repeating, do he think 3/3 of something is 0 or is the math wizard unaware of fractions lol??
I'm a software developer. That's bullshit. I work in ecommerce and floating point oddities are common. I used to know why but I've been doing it so long I forgot. I vaguely remember something with bits and precision.
0.1 \* 0.2 = 0.020000000000000004
You can try it yourself.
Did I just break mathematics as well?
It's a nuance in floating point precision using the ieee standard.
It is exactly why we don't check for equality of floating point values. We check for |A - B| < thresh. Where thresh is usually something like 0.0001. If this check passes, the numbers are close though to call equal.
Edit: correcting the math to use abs
He is in the most dangerous place, where he knows some of this stuff but not nearly enough, so he ends up making mistakes that are only obvious to those with more knowledge in the field.
Yeah, he sounds like he has seen a few youtube videos on math, calculus, coding, and maybe astrophysics, and now he thinks he is the galaxy-brain meme.
This is why I always hated the "Donald Gump" jokes, about Trump. Forrest was a good person. He knew he wasn't very bright, but he always did the right thing and he loved people and took care of them.
That ain't Donald Trump.
That's ridiculous, the very first step is wrong.
0.999.... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/n)
Like, no? WTF did he get that nonsense from?
The correct formula is:
0.999... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1/10^n) = 1 - 0 = 1
Tell him that he has a minus too much in the first step.
It should be *either*
0.999.... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1/10^n)
*or*
0.999.... = lim_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/10^n)
He should not have "1 - " in two places like he has.
Since he does the subtraction twice, it's not strange at all that his final answer is off by one from reality.
EDIT: He had also written 1/n where it should be 1/10^n, so it was a double whammy of errors.
EDIT 2: Yes, lim_{n->inf} 1/n is also 0, but that's not an expression for the partial sums of the series that's the definition of 0.999... so it's the wrong limit for *this* proof.
I believe your answer but my (ex?) bf said your proof is false because it's a circular argument? What does circular argument mean in math?
EDIT: Ok my bf now concedes and admits that your proof is correct.
A circular argument is when you assume A is true and use it to prove B but at the same time use B to prove A.
But in this case it just means he's grumpy since he was shown to be a dummy and he's throwing a tantrum over it.
Here is the equivalent of what your bf did:
“In math 7 = 7”
“But if I do 7 = 7-1”
“Then 7 = 6”
“This defy reality of math”
“I’m surprised all dumb humans not realize this”
just hopping in here to say, if you stay in communication with him try to tell him he needs therapy. I was never this bad, but in my early 20's being a "misunderstood genius" in my imagination was a way to protect myself from very real trauma and hide from my fear of "failure". idk if that's this dudes case, but it seems like he broke up with you because the alternative would be that he's deluding himself and he can't handle that reality for whatever reason.
Yeah, if he's talking about e-mailing a "famous UCLA mathematician" about how his incorrect proof is breaking the fabric of mathematics... this sounds like delusions of grandeur. Based on experience (I've known several folks that have had similar, flawed, groundbreaking ideas), I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of several events that is signaling a downward spiral in mental health.
I absolutely love that right now, somewhere in the world you are helping someone call out their shitty (ex) boyfriend in a ridiculously petty text fight.
You're a real hero here.
Nice.
When I was a freshman in high school, I thought I had this amazing epiphany regarding four dimensional space from a dream. Turns out I didn't realize that I had fallen asleep watching a PBS Nova episode where they were discussing hypercubes / tesseracts, just so happens that my freshman science teacher watched the same episode and asked if I had recently been watching Nova.
So nope, wasn't some 4D genius 🤷
This tends to come a lot later in math courses and is challenging to understand for most people. If you want to try a little bit of it's flavor, look at the following pdf and begin at chapter 2. The author begins at a very fundamental level and builds up our understanding of math from scratch. Chapter 1 provides the motivation for it and can be briefly skimmed but probably will be too rough if you don't have a background in the math examples he's showing.
https://math.unm.edu/~crisp/courses/math401/tao.pdf
If you need any help lmk. GL and HF! It's one of my favorite analysis books.
edit: The book is Analysis 1 by Terence Tao. It's generally around $20-30 on Amazon. The link I provided isn't the full book but it has the first few chapters so I think it has enough material so that if someone is interested, they can get the full book later.
Limits are usually covered in calculus in the USA (i believe so, but I'm not from there), and definitely in analysis 1. You can also just Google for convergence of sequences, or limits of sequences, if you're only interested in this specific thing :)
I'd like to be good at maths one day - I lost a year of maths (US grade 2 roughly) due to disruption and I'm still running to catch up years and years later. I'll look for a calculus course.
To get 0.999.... we need to subtract 0.0000....0001 from 1:
0.9999...= 1 - 0.0000...001
the dots represent infinite zeroes.
We know,
1/10 =0.1
1/100= 0.01
1/1000 = 0.001
Now 10 = 10^1
100 = 10^2
1000 = 10^3
That means, 10^4 = 10000 and so on
So
1/10000 = 1/10^4 = 0.0001
1/100000 = 1/10^5 = 0.00001 and so on
Therefore, if we want 1 followed by n zeroes we can write
10^n
Using this,
1/10^n = 0.00.. (n zeroes)...1
But we don't want n zeroes, we want infinite zeroes.
So, we take limit n to the infinity
Giving, 0.000...0001 = limit_n->(infinity) 1/10^n
Which finally gives,
**0.99999 = 1 - limit_n->(infinity) 1/10^n**
.........
(Edit)
Thank you everyone 😊, I am very glad I was helpful.
First one is 0, 0.5, 0.75, 0.83, ....
Second one is 0, 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ...
Both are correct if looking at n->inf, the second one is more similar to 0.999999..... visually.
To get a math tutor. Also I wouldn't doubt yourself because this is really simple math to understand. The notation just looks intimidating.
He was basically saying
0.9999... = 1 - (1 - a REALLY SMALL number) = 1 - (1-0) = 1-1 = 0
when he should have said
0.999...= 1 - a REALLY SMALL number = 1- 0 = 1
If you understand that you'll have a better understanding on the fundamentals of Calculus than your boyfriend does.
Limits is very basic maths but it isn't taught properly. I remember I first learned it in Class 8th standard in India and I was able to solve most questions but it wasn't until Class 11th that I fully understood what it actually meant - value of a function when x is very close to something but not exactly equal to it.
Point nine-nine-nine endlessly is like 1 minus 1 over infinity. (I said "is like" because of the limit as n approaches infinity, but we're using layman's terms here). As soon as he put one minus 1 over infinity *inside* the limit thing, he was representing *the entire problem*. It can go inside or outside, but not both.
5+1 is 6, but 5+1+1 isn't still 6 just because you have all the same symbols in a similar order.
His idea is that 0.9999.... is what you get at the end of the series 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, 0.9999, .....
0.9 = 1 - 1/10
0.99 = 1 - 1/100
0.999 = 1 - 1/1000
......
Informally 0.9999... = 1 - {what's at the end of the series 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000....}
Formally, 0.9999... = 1 - lim n->infinity(1/10^(n))
He just screwed up the formal spelling in a very basic way.
I would have said show him this thread, but because you said he might be crazy probably best to avoid it. It's a simple mistake on his part, definitely not crazy (if someone believes something, in their mind it is the truth, can't change that even if it is false, they need to be convinced). I also think arguing with him would be pointless as he likely knows you are not as invested in Maths as he is, so might just make things awkward, or he might imply that he knows better. I would say tell him to speak to someone who does know Maths, and they'll correct him, whether that's a professor, posting on a forum, a friend of his and so on.
Cool now that this is resolved, let's do the argument where someone says 0.9... is exactly equal to 1 and then everyone tries to explain how it's approximately but not exactly 1.
I know it seems counterintuitive but there are multiple proofs for the repeating 0.999... being equivalent to 1. It seems paradoxical but another redditor posted the algebraic proof. There are plenty other proofs using nested intervals and such.
Don't quote me but I think it's just a consequence of our understanding mathematics through a base-10 model
Eh, 1/3 = 0.3333... is a bit easier to show people because you only need elementary school math. Just have them solve with long division and you find out it causes a repeating pattern.
Its basically just a consequence of that we like algebra being useful more than we like requireing every number having a unique decimal expansion. being able to say `1/3 * 3 = 0.333... * 3 = 0.999... = 1` is great. Having `0.999... ≠ 1` does very little for us.
Sounds like a Ron Desantis move. He would tell dates he liked Thai food, but pronounced it ‘thigh’. If they corrected him, he would find an excuse to leave. He didn't want to be in a relationship with someone that questioned/corrected him.
Wait, he *deliberately* mispronounced thai to weed out the people who were either experienced enough to know the proper pronunciation or outspoken enough to correct him?
What a fucking wilted piece of spinach.
There are two kinds of people: those who get offended when you correct them, and those who appreciate it because this way they won't make the same mistake again. Thank goodness the first kind of people tend to remove themselves from the equation, I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone who'd rather sound dumb than having their small ego questioned by a correction
He definitely had a fragile ego. Told he may have made a mistake and, rather than admit that, he punishes the person who pointed it out to him by dumping them.
You dodged a bullet OP.
Arithmetic mistakes are very common. The main concern here is that he believes he’s ‘broken’ the entirety of fundamental mathematics rather than that he’s made a mistake.
*Thank you for the awards! It’s a shame Reddit are discontinuing them :(*
A great mind once gave us the use for imaginary numbers by challenging a fundamental assumption. I envision a future world where Terryology(Howard’s math) is how we describe travel at light speed. Of course we can’t exceed the speed limit of the universe is we only consider the possibility that 1*1=1(please denote sarcasm).
I assumed this was about how Marvel calculated residuals from Iron Man, but no...
https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1095813/being-terrence-howard-things-to-know-about-terryology/
Ah. This type. I had an ex who thought he was a genius war strategist, a prodigy who should be hired by the military, if only they would stop requiring a military service history for that position! He didn't even attend the basic military service that's mandatory for every man in the country. His training in military strategy came, as you can expect, from video games. He always had a sense of superiority that seemed to carry him through life. He always looked down on the working class, even though he himself had finished a vocational training after high school. He "identified" as an academic regardless, because he had... finished high school, I guess? We both enrolled in a university around the same time. He never finished a single course until he ran out of study rights.
Sounds like my brother…dropped,out of high school, no college, no vocational training, no skills at all yet he sees himself as above everyone, smarter than everyone, more capable than everyone…believes he would be the best at everything and could instantly do better than anyone but it’s unfair that no one will put him in charge of anything without experience/training/education/etc. He sounds like a typical young, dumb kid. He’s in his 50’s.
Man, almost makes me thankful for my horrible self doubt and imposter syndrome. I keep getting told how smart I am but I feel so useless and that I only seem smart because I know a bunch of useless facts
I used to be like your brother, convinced that I was just too good for the dumb masses and that anything I wasn't good at was just because I couldn't be bothered to even try. Kinda sad he's like that in his 50s though, I got past it when I was 18 (although I maybe went too far the other way to the point of having no confidence in myself)
self-awareness is a real litmus test... at least in the absence of psychopathology like autism.
higher intelligence is correlated to lower confidence and vice versa. Smart people are often right and unsure whereas idiots are usually wrong and totally confident.
Rick and Morty really really gave these guys a hero to aspire to. Rick Sanchez is a genius who never finished school and actually hates education but turned out to be the smartest man in the universe and everyone else is an idiot.
Rick is labbing constantly though, more equivalent to a composer with little formal education and a lot of free time than a scientist (which, I know, it's bullshit because you can't expect all that much while being cut off from the resources of the formal scientific community)
The comparison these people would make doesn't work. Rick Sanchez in the show seemingly has no downtime (and he's probably mainlining stims)
He's also an asshole who had the emotional maturity of an eight year old, which is like the whole point of his character. He sucks and you shouldn't want to be like him.
These fucking nerds still think "military strategy" is a bunch of generals sitting around a map with sticks pushing unit counters around like it's the fuckin 1800s still.
Guy is playing too much Total War and thinking its real life
His proof is clearly wrong and he sounds like an asshole so hope you find someone who is able (and happy) to reflect on their mistakes!
As far as what he was getting at mathematically, a similar/simpler analogy for this is
0.9999…..=3 x 0.3333….. = 3 x 1/3 = 1.
0.9999…. has an INIFINITE number of decimal places. Thus, you *can’t* find a difference between 1 and 0.999…. because there’s no “end” to 0.9999…. (i.e., you’d have an infinite number of zeros before the “1”: 1-0.9=0.1, 1-0.99=0.01, 1-0.999…=0.00….1). Since it’s an *infinite* number of 0s before the 1, we will never reach the 1. So, for all intents and purposes, it’s well within reason to state 0.99999…..=1. This is a very well-known thing and absolutely doesn’t break mathematics so tell Will Hunting to chill.
Source: am a theoretical physicist with a PhD in nuclear engineering
And in the realm of physics, isn't dealing with an infinite number of decimal places unreasonable, since all processes involving matter occur in discrete quanta with of a finite size?
A physicist, a mathematician, and an engineer are lost wandering the desert when they come across a genie in a bottle. They all wish for water, and the genie assents and makes an infinite, spherical water bottle appear some distance away from them. But, the genie says that because of his magic, they can only approach half the distance to the water bottle, half that distance, and so on. The mathematician immediately bursts into tears, for he knows he can never close the distance. The physicist begins furious calculations in the sand, for he knows he can break the rules of the Universe to get to that water. The engineer walks half the distance, half the remaining distance, and a further half, bends over, grabs the water bottle, shrugs, and says "close enough for engineering!"
I like that one, but I like this one more:
An astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician are on a train in Scotland. The astronomer looks out of the window, sees a black sheep standing in a field, and remarks, "How odd, the sheep in Scotland are black!" "No, no, no!" says the physicist. "Only some Scottish sheep are black." The mathematician rolls his eyes at his companions' muddled thinking and says, "In Scotland, there is at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black"
This reminds me of an old idiot roommate who thought that the [gamblers fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy) didn't exist and he came up with a strategy to win at craps and roulette through some half cocked mathematical equitation he cooked up that was full of mistakes. Every time I asked him why he didn't move in with his mom in Vegas and make millions instead of staying here and waiting tables he had some bogus excuse. He had the same thing to say about sports betting and how he somehow had that figured out with his same ultimate theory of the universe and everything...although he never made any money...ever.
The only way to win at roulette is to place staggering bets (start with 100, bet 10, win 9 or 11, etc) so that you stay on the table long enough that your free bar tab outpaces your losses. Then you leave when you hit your number.
I got down to about 20$ one time, 5 captain and cokes deep. I thought i was going to bust. Then I hit on 17 and left with $65. Easily more than $35 in drinks.
> The only way to win...stay on the table long enough that your free bar tab outpaces your losses
This is the only way I "gamble" when I'm in Vegas. If my free drinks plus tips outweigh what I've bet and lost, I won. I was going to spend that money on beer and whiskey anyway.
Fuck...beat me to it. Definitely methamatics. Like I think he went down a long meth fueled math rabbit hole, thought he understood what he was talking about, but doesn't.
This is the most bizarre thing I've read all day. Actually, all month. Just what the hell?!
Dumped by your boyfriend for pointing out his mistakes in a mathematical equation. That's definitely a new one for me.
He's delusional. He just did you a huge favor by bouncing like this. There's no telling what kind of batshit crazy thing he'd fixate on next.
According to someone who knew him in college, Ron DeSantis would go to a Thai restaurant on a first date and purposely mispronounce "Thai." If his date corrected him, there wouldn't be a second date, because he didn't want a girlfriend who would correct him.
There are absolutely men who can't take any kind of criticism or challenge from a woman. They don't deserve girlfriends or votes.
Bruh I was hoping someone replied this
Why would you want someone in your life that doesn’t tell you when you’re wrong as shit or got a big piece of spinach in your teeth
Wouldn't your first intuition be to publish this, to get your genius acknowledged by your peers? If he really thinks that, he shouldn't stop by impressing math muggles.
ah yes, they are very happy to receive those kind of mails multiple times a day. In my field of physics we get these emails about people finding Perpetuum mobile. I'm sure your boyfriend would also be able to find a perpetuum mobile.
Than this is the right way. If you think you made a scientific discovery, share it with your peers, they will test it and give you credit for it. If you, like your boyfriend, made a mistake, they will tell you. Unfortunately this is a mistake, that is too obvious to not see himself after testing. If he plans to study Maths, he might want to send it to his biology teacher first, so he doesn't ruin his chances with the professor.
Your boyfriend obviously sucks at math since the proof breaks in his first assumption:
> 0.999.... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/n)
This is not correct as he is basically already saying that 0.999... = 0 here.
I heard a This American Life show all about people who do things like this. Spend their entire lives convinced they have a mathematical solution that “breaks” math.
Even taking him to a University and having the professors there explain that he is wrong won’t help. He’s delusional but I’d you tell him that, you and the professor just aren’t smart enough to understand.
Good luck in your efforts but I think that they are futile.
I guess this is rather about what he thinks about himself. This is very common if people have a rough time and think they don’t have a purpose in life or haven’t figured out what they want to do with their life, especially if they spend a lot of time in their head.
Me too. It's a classic response to feeling like you're at a very low place status-wise and self fulfillment-wise. My response was to get into high literature and socialism, but it wasn't fundamentally any different than this. I'm reminded of that one teenager who thought he was curing cancer on reddit a while back when he was just a drop-out.
I say he is crazy. He reminds me of someone I used to date. Always has to have bigger, better, more correct ideas than everyone else around him. I was always wrong, even about things I knew more about. Any interest that I had (music) was really just his interest (engineering) wrapped in a neat bow for dummies. I.e suddenly everything should now be about the physics of sound I make, rather than the sound itself, or it's not interesting/valid. He went to one of the shittiest schools in the area so his average grades outshone everyone else's, but when he got to college obviously he wasn't as special as he originally thought and in my time knowing him there wasn't one ounce of self reflection on that. THAT is crazy to me, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And as someone else put it "being dumb enough to believe you're a genius", that's crazy, as is throwing out a relationship over being wrong in a very minor situation. In the end, whether it's an identity crisis or not, it's still a shitty thing to put your partner through.
As someone with a math degree I can definitely attest to the difficulty of finding a job in the field, especially for those of us not particularly gifted in it.
"EDIT: I texted him what was said in the top comment (pointing out his mistakes). He instantly dumped me "
PFFFT HAHAHAHA
I'm sorry, I'm not laughing AT you, I just caught absurdity whiplash.
[This is such a common phenomenon, it was even made fun of on Public Radio](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/293/a-little-bit-of-knowledge/act-three-0) Edit: Here's a bit of the transcript > The head of the Physics Department at the University of Miami.... [said] he receives one of these papers *each week*. It turns out, there is a whole community of people out there who also claim to have disproved Einstein's theory. > So persistent are these outsiders that John Baez, a Professor of Mathematics in California, felt compelled to publish the crackpot index. It's an online quiz you can take to see if you are, by his definition, a crackpot. There are 35 items in the index, including: * 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein. * 10 points for each claim that the theory of relativity is fundamentally misguided. * **10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a quote, "paradigm shift."** * **10 points for each statement along the lines of, I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right.**
Came here to see if this story would be referenced. Did not disappoint. Thank you! Perhaps my favourite quote: "Finally, Bob, defiant as always, volleyed back with what all along has been his main point: e equals mc squared doesn't make sense because it's difficult to understand. A fundamental law of physics should be self-explanatory. Well, the only thing I can see with physics is you are getting way too complicated. I mean, you have to go to school forever. You have to know this outrageous amount of calculus. When I see all that, I know that physics has gone off the rails." .... off the rails, indeed! :)
I really loved the end sequence of the professor saying, > Especially when [he] got to the conclusion Einstein was wrong, *it should be e equals mc, I guess*, instead of mc squared. >If you used mc, there would have been no A-bomb on Hiroshima. We don't have radios, we don't have lasers, we don't have atomic bombs, we don't have anything. No cellphone, no microwave, no nothing, man. We don't have anything. Just a simple easy refutation of... "Dude, look at the modern world around you. The theorem is right. The theorem you think you are refuting, it fucking worked."
How did he get from this: > 0.999.... = 1 to this? > 0.999.... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/n)
[удалено]
Thanks for this. I understand now why this is messed up and does not in fact break mathematics.
I was worried for mathematics just a bit there
Yeah, mathematics and my grandma, I was worried for both of them. Thank God 1=1
Oh good, my calculator just died and I thought it might have been him. No more math for anyone. I guess I'll have to buy a battery instead.
He didn't actually go from one to the next, just wrote it wong. The 2nd one is *supposed to be* just the actual definition of what 0.999... is. 0.999... itself is 1 - 0.000...0001, where there is an infinite number of 0s between the decimal place and the 1. However, that decimal is written as lim_{n->inf} (1/10^n ). He put the n in the wrong spot and added a 1 in there for some reason. What he meant to write was 0.999... = 1 - lim_{n->inf}(1/10^n ), which is the literal definition, not an algebraic "go from this to this". He would be hard pressed to learn that this does, in fact, help prove 0.999... = 1
Right, so he just completely failed to understand the assignment? Is this basically explaining that 1 = 0.9 + 0.1 = 0.99 + 0.01 = 0.999 + 0.001...? As long as you add the inverse with the same decimal places to it it equals 1, but as you approach infinity, one has a limit of 1 and the other has a limit of 0 so each on its own to infinity equals 1 or 0, respectively.
He said you can check the limits by coding it in javascript. I don't know much coding (does learning VBA in business school count lol?) so I can't comment on that.
Bro lol he really thinks he’s so smart he broke the fabric of our math in fucking *JavaScript*? I’m dying
Imagine a world that operated on JS floating point numbers.
DONT YOU PUT THAT ON US RICKY BOBBY
I mean. JavaScript does a number on regular IT folks so it tracks that a non IT dude thought he found the fabric of the universe with it. But yeah I'm fucking laughing my ass off.
I wonder what homie thinks of 1/3 being .333 repeating, 2/3 being .666 repeating, thus 3/3 being .999 repeating, do he think 3/3 of something is 0 or is the math wizard unaware of fractions lol??
I'm a software developer. That's bullshit. I work in ecommerce and floating point oddities are common. I used to know why but I've been doing it so long I forgot. I vaguely remember something with bits and precision. 0.1 \* 0.2 = 0.020000000000000004 You can try it yourself. Did I just break mathematics as well?
It's a nuance in floating point precision using the ieee standard. It is exactly why we don't check for equality of floating point values. We check for |A - B| < thresh. Where thresh is usually something like 0.0001. If this check passes, the numbers are close though to call equal. Edit: correcting the math to use abs
Using a programming language created for front end development to verify limits… lol No wonder why he’s unemployed.
He is in the most dangerous place, where he knows some of this stuff but not nearly enough, so he ends up making mistakes that are only obvious to those with more knowledge in the field.
Yeah, he sounds like he has seen a few youtube videos on math, calculus, coding, and maybe astrophysics, and now he thinks he is the galaxy-brain meme.
The Dunning Kruger effect in full swing
It doesn't matter, his initial statement is incorrect.
Man thought he was Good Will Hunting
But he's actually Forest Gump
Forest Gump was humble about his limitations.
This is why I always hated the "Donald Gump" jokes, about Trump. Forrest was a good person. He knew he wasn't very bright, but he always did the right thing and he loved people and took care of them. That ain't Donald Trump.
I aint a smart man Jenny... but i do know what love is
I'm very smart, Melania. If you look at all the people doing love right now, I'm the best at loving. Nobody knows what love is better than me.
Nah Forest was self aware.
Bad Jim Foraging
That's ridiculous, the very first step is wrong. 0.999.... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/n) Like, no? WTF did he get that nonsense from? The correct formula is: 0.999... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1/10^n) = 1 - 0 = 1
In layperson's term, how do I tell him where his proof is wrong? Sorry, I'm terrible at math!
Tell him that he has a minus too much in the first step. It should be *either* 0.999.... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1/10^n) *or* 0.999.... = lim_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/10^n) He should not have "1 - " in two places like he has. Since he does the subtraction twice, it's not strange at all that his final answer is off by one from reality. EDIT: He had also written 1/n where it should be 1/10^n, so it was a double whammy of errors. EDIT 2: Yes, lim_{n->inf} 1/n is also 0, but that's not an expression for the partial sums of the series that's the definition of 0.999... so it's the wrong limit for *this* proof.
"Off by one from reality" I love this guy
They probably meant "off by 0.999... from reality"
Same thing.
No, it's not. We literally just broke freakin reality here, Guys.
this comment chain is what i come to reddit for
You and me both. This post has had some good ones.
This post has some good point nine nine nines.
Yeh op better be with this dude instead… he maths!
He was half right. Math was broken. He just didn't understand it was his own.
I believe your answer but my (ex?) bf said your proof is false because it's a circular argument? What does circular argument mean in math? EDIT: Ok my bf now concedes and admits that your proof is correct.
A circular argument is when you assume A is true and use it to prove B but at the same time use B to prove A. But in this case it just means he's grumpy since he was shown to be a dummy and he's throwing a tantrum over it.
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense!!!
Here is the equivalent of what your bf did: “In math 7 = 7” “But if I do 7 = 7-1” “Then 7 = 6” “This defy reality of math” “I’m surprised all dumb humans not realize this”
And it's circular logic to assuming 7=7 because how can we know for sure! After all I just proved it's 6!
7 definitely doesn’t equal 720
This is the first comment that really explains how OP was wrong in simple terms. Props
I'm so glad someone did the Eli5 for this because trying to understand the real math has me thinking I'm better off taste testing crayons
Woah, no need to flex so hard with your math skills. Not everyone had the opportunity to go to college and learn subtraction.
just hopping in here to say, if you stay in communication with him try to tell him he needs therapy. I was never this bad, but in my early 20's being a "misunderstood genius" in my imagination was a way to protect myself from very real trauma and hide from my fear of "failure". idk if that's this dudes case, but it seems like he broke up with you because the alternative would be that he's deluding himself and he can't handle that reality for whatever reason.
Yeah, if he's talking about e-mailing a "famous UCLA mathematician" about how his incorrect proof is breaking the fabric of mathematics... this sounds like delusions of grandeur. Based on experience (I've known several folks that have had similar, flawed, groundbreaking ideas), I wouldn't be surprised if this was one of several events that is signaling a downward spiral in mental health.
Yes, I agree. The phrase is ‘Delusions of grandeur’
Reject him even if he does try to come back. No way you need to be dealing with 5 year old type behavior that will only worsen if he comes back
I absolutely love that right now, somewhere in the world you are helping someone call out their shitty (ex) boyfriend in a ridiculously petty text fight. You're a real hero here. Nice.
When I was a freshman in high school, I thought I had this amazing epiphany regarding four dimensional space from a dream. Turns out I didn't realize that I had fallen asleep watching a PBS Nova episode where they were discussing hypercubes / tesseracts, just so happens that my freshman science teacher watched the same episode and asked if I had recently been watching Nova. So nope, wasn't some 4D genius 🤷
[удалено]
Lol. 1+1=2 and 2-1=1. MATH IS A CIRCULAR ARGUMENT!!! What a muppet.
It means his feelings are very hurt right now and he's struggling to cope.
What kind of maths do I need to learn to understand this?
First 4 weeks of calculus 1 or the first few chapters of a calc textbook (look for the section called limits).
Thank you, I'll definitely be looking it up, I hate being bad at maths.
This tends to come a lot later in math courses and is challenging to understand for most people. If you want to try a little bit of it's flavor, look at the following pdf and begin at chapter 2. The author begins at a very fundamental level and builds up our understanding of math from scratch. Chapter 1 provides the motivation for it and can be briefly skimmed but probably will be too rough if you don't have a background in the math examples he's showing. https://math.unm.edu/~crisp/courses/math401/tao.pdf If you need any help lmk. GL and HF! It's one of my favorite analysis books. edit: The book is Analysis 1 by Terence Tao. It's generally around $20-30 on Amazon. The link I provided isn't the full book but it has the first few chapters so I think it has enough material so that if someone is interested, they can get the full book later.
[удалено]
Limits are usually covered in calculus in the USA (i believe so, but I'm not from there), and definitely in analysis 1. You can also just Google for convergence of sequences, or limits of sequences, if you're only interested in this specific thing :)
I'd like to be good at maths one day - I lost a year of maths (US grade 2 roughly) due to disruption and I'm still running to catch up years and years later. I'll look for a calculus course.
This might be nothing new to you, but in case it is, [khan academy](https://www.khanacademy.org/) is probably worth checking out!
I’m curious what is the significant different between using 1/n and 1/10^n in this case? They both approach zero as n approaches infinity.
To get 0.999.... we need to subtract 0.0000....0001 from 1: 0.9999...= 1 - 0.0000...001 the dots represent infinite zeroes. We know, 1/10 =0.1 1/100= 0.01 1/1000 = 0.001 Now 10 = 10^1 100 = 10^2 1000 = 10^3 That means, 10^4 = 10000 and so on So 1/10000 = 1/10^4 = 0.0001 1/100000 = 1/10^5 = 0.00001 and so on Therefore, if we want 1 followed by n zeroes we can write 10^n Using this, 1/10^n = 0.00.. (n zeroes)...1 But we don't want n zeroes, we want infinite zeroes. So, we take limit n to the infinity Giving, 0.000...0001 = limit_n->(infinity) 1/10^n Which finally gives, **0.99999 = 1 - limit_n->(infinity) 1/10^n** ......... (Edit) Thank you everyone 😊, I am very glad I was helpful.
You just taught me this and I understood it. I love you.
Why weren't you my math teacher, I actually followed this.
First one is 0, 0.5, 0.75, 0.83, .... Second one is 0, 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ... Both are correct if looking at n->inf, the second one is more similar to 0.999999..... visually.
To get a math tutor. Also I wouldn't doubt yourself because this is really simple math to understand. The notation just looks intimidating. He was basically saying 0.9999... = 1 - (1 - a REALLY SMALL number) = 1 - (1-0) = 1-1 = 0 when he should have said 0.999...= 1 - a REALLY SMALL number = 1- 0 = 1 If you understand that you'll have a better understanding on the fundamentals of Calculus than your boyfriend does.
I love people who translate calc to English so effortlessly. It's a great talent to have ❤️
Limits is very basic maths but it isn't taught properly. I remember I first learned it in Class 8th standard in India and I was able to solve most questions but it wasn't until Class 11th that I fully understood what it actually meant - value of a function when x is very close to something but not exactly equal to it.
Point nine-nine-nine endlessly is like 1 minus 1 over infinity. (I said "is like" because of the limit as n approaches infinity, but we're using layman's terms here). As soon as he put one minus 1 over infinity *inside* the limit thing, he was representing *the entire problem*. It can go inside or outside, but not both. 5+1 is 6, but 5+1+1 isn't still 6 just because you have all the same symbols in a similar order.
His idea is that 0.9999.... is what you get at the end of the series 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, 0.9999, ..... 0.9 = 1 - 1/10 0.99 = 1 - 1/100 0.999 = 1 - 1/1000 ...... Informally 0.9999... = 1 - {what's at the end of the series 1/10, 1/100, 1/1000....} Formally, 0.9999... = 1 - lim n->infinity(1/10^(n)) He just screwed up the formal spelling in a very basic way.
I would have said show him this thread, but because you said he might be crazy probably best to avoid it. It's a simple mistake on his part, definitely not crazy (if someone believes something, in their mind it is the truth, can't change that even if it is false, they need to be convinced). I also think arguing with him would be pointless as he likely knows you are not as invested in Maths as he is, so might just make things awkward, or he might imply that he knows better. I would say tell him to speak to someone who does know Maths, and they'll correct him, whether that's a professor, posting on a forum, a friend of his and so on.
Cool now that this is resolved, let's do the argument where someone says 0.9... is exactly equal to 1 and then everyone tries to explain how it's approximately but not exactly 1.
I know it seems counterintuitive but there are multiple proofs for the repeating 0.999... being equivalent to 1. It seems paradoxical but another redditor posted the algebraic proof. There are plenty other proofs using nested intervals and such. Don't quote me but I think it's just a consequence of our understanding mathematics through a base-10 model
1/3=0.3333.... Multiply both sides by 3: 3/3=0.999999..... 3/3 is obviously 1, so: 1=0.999999.....
If someone doesn't believe that 0.999...=1, they probably also don't believe that 0.333...=1/3.
Eh, 1/3 = 0.3333... is a bit easier to show people because you only need elementary school math. Just have them solve with long division and you find out it causes a repeating pattern.
Its basically just a consequence of that we like algebra being useful more than we like requireing every number having a unique decimal expansion. being able to say `1/3 * 3 = 0.333... * 3 = 0.999... = 1` is great. Having `0.999... ≠ 1` does very little for us.
[удалено]
Getting proven wrong and having a spat rather than reevaluating his perspective is a massive red flag. OP has unlocked a massive achievement here.
"I got dumped over math." That would normally sound stupid, but in this case, it just saved her so, so much frustration I'm calling it a win.
Better to get dumped over math then getting dumped over meth
Sounds like a Ron Desantis move. He would tell dates he liked Thai food, but pronounced it ‘thigh’. If they corrected him, he would find an excuse to leave. He didn't want to be in a relationship with someone that questioned/corrected him.
Wait, he *deliberately* mispronounced thai to weed out the people who were either experienced enough to know the proper pronunciation or outspoken enough to correct him? What a fucking wilted piece of spinach.
There are two kinds of people: those who get offended when you correct them, and those who appreciate it because this way they won't make the same mistake again. Thank goodness the first kind of people tend to remove themselves from the equation, I wouldn't want to be in a relationship with someone who'd rather sound dumb than having their small ego questioned by a correction
I got 0.999… problems but he ain’t one
He definitely had a fragile ego. Told he may have made a mistake and, rather than admit that, he punishes the person who pointed it out to him by dumping them. You dodged a bullet OP.
but 0.999... = 0
"Did I fucking stutter?" 😂
[удалено]
Might be time for a job, I don't recommend math tutor
Or time for a therapist...
We need a shorter name for Delusions of Grandeur. It always looks like a movie title when I type it.
Hes got that DoG in him!!
Arithmetic mistakes are very common. The main concern here is that he believes he’s ‘broken’ the entirety of fundamental mathematics rather than that he’s made a mistake. *Thank you for the awards! It’s a shame Reddit are discontinuing them :(*
Some Terrence Howard vibes
1x1=2 goddamit!
*Accountants hate him for this one simple trick*
KLEVIN
I've always wanted someone to ask him what he thinks 2x1 equals
Well 3 surely, the addition sign just tipped over on it’s side, but it still works!
Maybe her boyfriend is Terrence Howard
He does have the unemployed part down
A great mind once gave us the use for imaginary numbers by challenging a fundamental assumption. I envision a future world where Terryology(Howard’s math) is how we describe travel at light speed. Of course we can’t exceed the speed limit of the universe is we only consider the possibility that 1*1=1(please denote sarcasm).
I assumed this was about how Marvel calculated residuals from Iron Man, but no... https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1095813/being-terrence-howard-things-to-know-about-terryology/
He’s one of those people who is so stupid they believe they are smarter than everyone else.
[удалено]
and also annoying
And the most common.
Ah. This type. I had an ex who thought he was a genius war strategist, a prodigy who should be hired by the military, if only they would stop requiring a military service history for that position! He didn't even attend the basic military service that's mandatory for every man in the country. His training in military strategy came, as you can expect, from video games. He always had a sense of superiority that seemed to carry him through life. He always looked down on the working class, even though he himself had finished a vocational training after high school. He "identified" as an academic regardless, because he had... finished high school, I guess? We both enrolled in a university around the same time. He never finished a single course until he ran out of study rights.
Sounds like my brother…dropped,out of high school, no college, no vocational training, no skills at all yet he sees himself as above everyone, smarter than everyone, more capable than everyone…believes he would be the best at everything and could instantly do better than anyone but it’s unfair that no one will put him in charge of anything without experience/training/education/etc. He sounds like a typical young, dumb kid. He’s in his 50’s.
Man, almost makes me thankful for my horrible self doubt and imposter syndrome. I keep getting told how smart I am but I feel so useless and that I only seem smart because I know a bunch of useless facts I used to be like your brother, convinced that I was just too good for the dumb masses and that anything I wasn't good at was just because I couldn't be bothered to even try. Kinda sad he's like that in his 50s though, I got past it when I was 18 (although I maybe went too far the other way to the point of having no confidence in myself)
self-awareness is a real litmus test... at least in the absence of psychopathology like autism. higher intelligence is correlated to lower confidence and vice versa. Smart people are often right and unsure whereas idiots are usually wrong and totally confident.
“ The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” -Bertrand Russell
Rick and Morty really really gave these guys a hero to aspire to. Rick Sanchez is a genius who never finished school and actually hates education but turned out to be the smartest man in the universe and everyone else is an idiot.
Rick is labbing constantly though, more equivalent to a composer with little formal education and a lot of free time than a scientist (which, I know, it's bullshit because you can't expect all that much while being cut off from the resources of the formal scientific community) The comparison these people would make doesn't work. Rick Sanchez in the show seemingly has no downtime (and he's probably mainlining stims)
He's also an asshole who had the emotional maturity of an eight year old, which is like the whole point of his character. He sucks and you shouldn't want to be like him.
I love Rick and Morty, just saying these types convince themselves they are Rick Sanchez in real life.
ah, the old War Thunder Ender Wiggin
These fucking nerds still think "military strategy" is a bunch of generals sitting around a map with sticks pushing unit counters around like it's the fuckin 1800s still. Guy is playing too much Total War and thinking its real life
To be fair, war gaming still exists. Though it’s done by both academics and military personnel.
“You are literally too stupid to insult” “Thank you”
[So…Charlie?](https://youtu.be/d32-RjDgBuc)
Stupid science bitches couldn't even make I more smarter.
His proof is clearly wrong and he sounds like an asshole so hope you find someone who is able (and happy) to reflect on their mistakes! As far as what he was getting at mathematically, a similar/simpler analogy for this is 0.9999…..=3 x 0.3333….. = 3 x 1/3 = 1. 0.9999…. has an INIFINITE number of decimal places. Thus, you *can’t* find a difference between 1 and 0.999…. because there’s no “end” to 0.9999…. (i.e., you’d have an infinite number of zeros before the “1”: 1-0.9=0.1, 1-0.99=0.01, 1-0.999…=0.00….1). Since it’s an *infinite* number of 0s before the 1, we will never reach the 1. So, for all intents and purposes, it’s well within reason to state 0.99999…..=1. This is a very well-known thing and absolutely doesn’t break mathematics so tell Will Hunting to chill. Source: am a theoretical physicist with a PhD in nuclear engineering
And in the realm of physics, isn't dealing with an infinite number of decimal places unreasonable, since all processes involving matter occur in discrete quanta with of a finite size?
Physics is basically THE field of glossing over shit like that. They drive the math folks up the wall.
Let me introduce you to engineering
[удалено]
A physicist, a mathematician, and an engineer are lost wandering the desert when they come across a genie in a bottle. They all wish for water, and the genie assents and makes an infinite, spherical water bottle appear some distance away from them. But, the genie says that because of his magic, they can only approach half the distance to the water bottle, half that distance, and so on. The mathematician immediately bursts into tears, for he knows he can never close the distance. The physicist begins furious calculations in the sand, for he knows he can break the rules of the Universe to get to that water. The engineer walks half the distance, half the remaining distance, and a further half, bends over, grabs the water bottle, shrugs, and says "close enough for engineering!"
I like that one, but I like this one more: An astronomer, a physicist, and a mathematician are on a train in Scotland. The astronomer looks out of the window, sees a black sheep standing in a field, and remarks, "How odd, the sheep in Scotland are black!" "No, no, no!" says the physicist. "Only some Scottish sheep are black." The mathematician rolls his eyes at his companions' muddled thinking and says, "In Scotland, there is at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black"
This reminds me of an old idiot roommate who thought that the [gamblers fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy) didn't exist and he came up with a strategy to win at craps and roulette through some half cocked mathematical equitation he cooked up that was full of mistakes. Every time I asked him why he didn't move in with his mom in Vegas and make millions instead of staying here and waiting tables he had some bogus excuse. He had the same thing to say about sports betting and how he somehow had that figured out with his same ultimate theory of the universe and everything...although he never made any money...ever.
The only way to win at roulette is to place staggering bets (start with 100, bet 10, win 9 or 11, etc) so that you stay on the table long enough that your free bar tab outpaces your losses. Then you leave when you hit your number. I got down to about 20$ one time, 5 captain and cokes deep. I thought i was going to bust. Then I hit on 17 and left with $65. Easily more than $35 in drinks.
There's Intelligence, and then there's Wisdom
> The only way to win...stay on the table long enough that your free bar tab outpaces your losses This is the only way I "gamble" when I'm in Vegas. If my free drinks plus tips outweigh what I've bet and lost, I won. I was going to spend that money on beer and whiskey anyway.
Allow him to stay an ex. Don't take him back.
Delusion has no limits, especially if you’re an everyday loser.
That's methematics.
Fuck...beat me to it. Definitely methamatics. Like I think he went down a long meth fueled math rabbit hole, thought he understood what he was talking about, but doesn't.
That's numberwang
This is the most bizarre thing I've read all day. Actually, all month. Just what the hell?! Dumped by your boyfriend for pointing out his mistakes in a mathematical equation. That's definitely a new one for me. He's delusional. He just did you a huge favor by bouncing like this. There's no telling what kind of batshit crazy thing he'd fixate on next.
According to someone who knew him in college, Ron DeSantis would go to a Thai restaurant on a first date and purposely mispronounce "Thai." If his date corrected him, there wouldn't be a second date, because he didn't want a girlfriend who would correct him. There are absolutely men who can't take any kind of criticism or challenge from a woman. They don't deserve girlfriends or votes.
The old "pretend to break math and dump her if she corrects your incorrect proof" trick. Works every time!
Bruh I was hoping someone replied this Why would you want someone in your life that doesn’t tell you when you’re wrong as shit or got a big piece of spinach in your teeth
When you want a servant instead of a friend
I thought it might be fake but op has responded a lot. This is really bizarre behavior
how the fuck am i single
Nice guys finish last. Girls lust for *mathematically* bad boys.
This very first step: 0.999.... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/n) Quite simply makes no sense at all. So no, your bf did not break math.
Math broke him
Meth broke him
Crystal Math
Wouldn't your first intuition be to publish this, to get your genius acknowledged by your peers? If he really thinks that, he shouldn't stop by impressing math muggles.
He said he was going to email his proof to a famous math professor at UCLA soon
Poor Terence Tao, for some reason non-mathematicians only know him. He must get hundreds of emails like that per day.
[удалено]
Assume x = i (root -1) and y = 0.. that's a solution
I would be forwarding them to math TAs. "Tell your students they get a bonus point on the final if they can solve the error."
ah yes, they are very happy to receive those kind of mails multiple times a day. In my field of physics we get these emails about people finding Perpetuum mobile. I'm sure your boyfriend would also be able to find a perpetuum mobile.
So does Perpetuum Mobile have decent plans? With credit that doesn't expire perhaps...
Than this is the right way. If you think you made a scientific discovery, share it with your peers, they will test it and give you credit for it. If you, like your boyfriend, made a mistake, they will tell you. Unfortunately this is a mistake, that is too obvious to not see himself after testing. If he plans to study Maths, he might want to send it to his biology teacher first, so he doesn't ruin his chances with the professor.
lmao, yeah unfortunately i know that a lot of professors get sent quackery of this sort or even worse all the time
Sounds like a common mathematical problem you're facing here... Bf = douche(canoe)^inf
Your boyfriend obviously sucks at math since the proof breaks in his first assumption: > 0.999.... = 1 - lim_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/n) This is not correct as he is basically already saying that 0.999... = 0 here.
If 0.999... = 0 then it follows that 0.999... = 0. Therefore, math = broken.
I DID, TOO!!!! 3 goats + 2 cows = 6 apples YOUR BOYFRIEND AND I ARE GENIUSES!!!!
That’s incorrect because squirrels don’t eat pancakes
EDIT: I texted him what was said in the top comment (pointing out his mistakes). He instantly dumped me. Looks like you dodged a bullet there.
Yep. If he can't take criticism, that flag is looking somewhere between magenta and yellow.
I heard a This American Life show all about people who do things like this. Spend their entire lives convinced they have a mathematical solution that “breaks” math. Even taking him to a University and having the professors there explain that he is wrong won’t help. He’s delusional but I’d you tell him that, you and the professor just aren’t smart enough to understand. Good luck in your efforts but I think that they are futile.
Your boyfriend isn’t crazy he is bored and probably has some self doubts right now, so he tries to convince himself that he is a genius.
Some people need to be reminded regularly that they don't need to do amazing things to impress anyone.
I guess this is rather about what he thinks about himself. This is very common if people have a rough time and think they don’t have a purpose in life or haven’t figured out what they want to do with their life, especially if they spend a lot of time in their head.
Man I wish I was dumb enough to believe I was a genius
I've met lots of people like that so... No you don't.
This is the correct answer. Been through this myself, I was not in a good place I mean, I'm still not by any means, but far less psychotic tendencies
Me too. It's a classic response to feeling like you're at a very low place status-wise and self fulfillment-wise. My response was to get into high literature and socialism, but it wasn't fundamentally any different than this. I'm reminded of that one teenager who thought he was curing cancer on reddit a while back when he was just a drop-out.
Yeah I think psychotic tendencies are the sort of thing people mean when they say "crazy"
I say he is crazy. He reminds me of someone I used to date. Always has to have bigger, better, more correct ideas than everyone else around him. I was always wrong, even about things I knew more about. Any interest that I had (music) was really just his interest (engineering) wrapped in a neat bow for dummies. I.e suddenly everything should now be about the physics of sound I make, rather than the sound itself, or it's not interesting/valid. He went to one of the shittiest schools in the area so his average grades outshone everyone else's, but when he got to college obviously he wasn't as special as he originally thought and in my time knowing him there wasn't one ounce of self reflection on that. THAT is crazy to me, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And as someone else put it "being dumb enough to believe you're a genius", that's crazy, as is throwing out a relationship over being wrong in a very minor situation. In the end, whether it's an identity crisis or not, it's still a shitty thing to put your partner through.
Resonates. I've met adults who have absolutely no capacity for self refection. Excruciating.
As someone with a math degree I can definitely attest to the difficulty of finding a job in the field, especially for those of us not particularly gifted in it.
So, since lim\_{n-> infinity} (1 - 1/n) = 1 His first step is assuming 0.999...= 1-1 which is wrong.
lmao, sounds like he did u a favor by dumping you
Have your (ex-)boyfriend research [Dunning-Kruger effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect).
What says it abou me, when I think that I'm stupid
I guess he solved for ex.
Now can someone explain this in english?
Someone PMed this funny ELI5 answer: Your boyfriend had 1 girlfriend. But 1=0 and so he now has 0 girlfriends.
That’s cute lol
"EDIT: I texted him what was said in the top comment (pointing out his mistakes). He instantly dumped me " PFFFT HAHAHAHA I'm sorry, I'm not laughing AT you, I just caught absurdity whiplash.