Adopey.1984
net.math
utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!dopey.bts
Fri Mar 19 10:44:09 1982
You Can Too Be A Math Genius
     I'm a little disappointed by all the attacks on  davy's
"You  Too Can Be A Math Genius".  I found it upsetting when,
long ago in  elementary  school,  a  teacher  told  me  that
.9999...  was  the  same thing as 1.  The argument that they
must be the same since I can't tell you what  their  differ-
ence is-- except for conceding it to be 0-- is far from con-
vincing.  I can't write down a name for most  real  numbers,
but that's no reason to doubt their existence.
     In defense of the naive intuition that davy and I-- and
perhaps  others  who  won't  admit to it-- once shared, I've
written up a short description of how to  try  to  formalize
the  belief  that .9999... is "almost the same, but a little
less".  It's just over 100 lines, and it mentions such nasty
things as "ultrafilters" and the like.  Still, I don't think
there's anything in it grossly  wrong  or  likely  to  cause
cancer in readers.
     It follows after this warning.

		Bruce T. Smith, UNC-CH
		(...!duke!unc!bts)