Portal:Mathematics
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Mathematics is the study of representing and reasoning about abstract objects (such as numbers, points, spaces, sets, structures, and games). Mathematics is used throughout the world as an essential tool in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, and the social sciences. Applied mathematics, the branch of mathematics concerned with application of mathematical knowledge to other fields, inspires and makes use of new mathematical discoveries and sometimes leads to the development of entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics and game theory. Mathematicians also engage in pure mathematics, or mathematics for its own sake, without having any application in mind. There is no clear line separating pure and applied mathematics, and practical applications for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered. (Full article...)
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- ... that multiple mathematics competitions have made use of Sophie Germain's identity?
- ... that Arithmetic was the first mathematics text book written in the Russian language?
- ... that when mathematician Josephine M. Mitchell married another University of Illinois faculty member, the university revoked her tenured position so her husband could keep his untenured one?
- ... that some philosophers of mathematics believe that the life cycle of a species of cicadas is a good argument for the existence of numbers?
- ... that Catechumen, a Christian first-person shooter, was funded only in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre?
- ... that an equivalence between algebraic and geometric definitions of constructible numbers helps prove the impossibility of squaring the circle?
- ... that the mathematical infinity symbol ∞ may be derived from the Roman numerals for 1000 or for 100 million?
- ... that juggling patterns can be encoded in terms of a mathematical object called the affine symmetric group?
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- ...that the set of rational numbers is equal in size to the set of integers; that is, they can be put in one-to-one correspondence?
- ...that there are precisely six convex regular polytopes in four dimensions? These are analogs of the five Platonic solids known to the ancient Greeks.
- ...that it is unknown whether π and e are algebraically independent?
- ...that a nonconvex polygon with three convex vertices is called a pseudotriangle?
- ...that it is possible for a three-dimensional figure to have a finite volume but infinite surface area, such as Gabriel's Horn?
- ... that as the dimension of a hypersphere tends to infinity, its "volume" (content) tends to 0?
- ...that the primality of a number can be determined using only a single division using Wilson's Theorem?
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The real number denoted by the recurring decimal 0.999… is exactly equal to 1. In other words, "0.999…" represents the same number as the symbol "1". Various proofs of this identity have been formulated with varying rigour, preferred development of the real numbers, background assumptions, historical context, and target audience.
The equality has long been taught in textbooks, and in the last few decades, researchers of mathematics education have studied the reception of this equation among students, who often reject the equality. The students' reasoning is typically based on one of a few common erroneous intuitions about the real numbers; for example, a belief that each unique decimal expansion must correspond to a unique number, an expectation that infinitesimal quantities should exist, that arithmetic may be broken, an inability to understand limits or simply the belief that 0.999… should have a last 9. These ideas are false with respect to the real numbers, which can be proven by explicitly constructing the reals from the rational numbers, and such constructions can also prove that 0.999… = 1 directly. (Full article...)
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