Really? Gosh!

QL-development seems to be a search for the most efficient destruction of the entire series.
So I can understand these changes.

A lot of the Steam launch changes were unpopular and I don't blame anyone for being pissed off. These changes, though, could be a good thing.

I'm not really pissed at anyone.... I'm way to relaxed for that to happen.

I do like to ridicule lack of intelligence. :D

I wasn't suggesting you were pissed. I was pointing out that a lot of players were apparently pissed off about the Steam changes -- and understandably so, for the old school guys. My point was that unlike the "steam update", these rumored changes don't mess with the gameplay and could provide a significant benefit.

ok?
To me it seemed like you were kinda heavily infering that I was pissed...

Naw.... Not familiar with who you are or what you've posted on here, aside from posts in the netcode thread (which included some interesting observations).

I mean it more like...
I post a somewhat offensive post, you reply to that with "I understand a lot of people are pissed".

The link is made pretty easily like that hehe ;)

Yeah, but for the "old school" guys this news is meaningless. Unless they revert the previous steam update to what it was before.

Myself, I haven't touched qlive since a day before the steam update. And them going steam exclusive won't change any of the shitfest they created with said update. For me it just means going from 99.9% I won't play qlive in it's current form to 100% not playing it in it's soon to be new form.

strange isn't it?
To suddenly stop a game like that :s

what rumor changes. nothing in op

If you search for the URL on google you get a small excerpt of what was posted, but there's no full cached version.

I'll be honest, I didn't reach much of what was said below, but this sentence:

I do like to ridicule lack of intelligence. :D

does make you out to look as a bully.

We need more gasoline! \o/

Very serious statement! Source please?

itll be like q3.

dont you remember how much better that shit was?

include radiant in the package.

Exept for steam only.

These are excellent changes.

Great news.
I don't have anything against Steam.
Sad part is that they will kill qlranks service. Hopefully they will not.
Maybe they will start to use Valve anti cheat.
But I doubt that Valve is capable to catch quakelive smart aimbots.

Radiant its cool stuff. Reflex has it built in )

Radiant its cool stuff. Reflex has it built in

Comparing Reflex Editor to Radiant is like comparing bicycle to F-16.

Yeah, exactly. The bicycle may be slower, but it has more bells and whistles.

And you can clip a baseball card onto the frame so it hits the spokes and makes the click/tick sound. Can't do none of that on an F-16.

Yes, but better then nothing as it is in quakelive.

Yeah...... It has to be Steam-only if a developer wants to use VAC. They aren't going to be able to develop their own anticheat due the cost and complexity. Not sure if the rumor is true but it makes sense to me.

VAC would actually be quite effective against the 2 or 3 free aimbot programs that have been plaguing the game for quite a while. It's effective at identifying any "known" cheat programs. It won't be as effective against the custom paid hacks a few people use, but 95%+ of cheaters are using free, identifiable hacks.

finally no more people asking your ELO before the duel starts

elo?

ello?

mmmmyellow?

...

Now they will simply not bother.

lol they really don't want you playing their game.

Source of the info?

Dont care, btw

PLAY MOAR QUAKEWORLD

qlranks is the only positive thing made for ql in years, rotfl @ this update

Yeah I don't really understand when all the features the game need are being made by the community if possible and every time it is id's turn to add something, it seems like a big screw up. At least, that's what it is for the changes we have received lately.

Over the years, they could have added a basic league / leaderboard implemention and hone it over the time. Queuing system or a PUG system. Anything at all that would have helped Quake stay true as an eSport and not the kind of changes that are valuable for a casual game.

It seems like this is our current problem, they are not considering Quake as an eSport anymore. They can still monetize the game without sacrificing its most crucial aspect. :(

They never considered quake as an esport.
Also esport doesn't exist - there is merely "competetive gaming".

syncerror call ql esport. i saw this

I am referring to the people at id who distribute resources and set main business aims.

you mean tim willits. he is pretty clueless bout ql. so was hollenshead

syncerror call most of the shots thou.

Btw i dont doubt theyre going steam only ASAP, with steam numbers declining non stop...

source?

no one has even confirmed a source ... relax puppets

Going steam only was just a matter of time, stats and elo has been mentioned as bad for newbies. It may be a lie, but doesnt sounds that far fetched coming from id lol.

/me relax

Any game improvement on that update, or just the usual modifying non-game related stuff and passing that as patch notes?

Will it be their response to Reflex, or will it only consist of them trying to fix the bugs they introduced?

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

damn you son.

brilliant song, thanks for linking!

Yeeaaah I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit on this. Though I also called bullshit on the first loadouts rumor, so what do I know...

What was wrote in op post? see dot

steam only release?

meh who care

qworld more fun

Keep on calling BS all you want, just remember how that turned out in this thread

:` ))))

lol... good times

That was super official - they had focus group and stuff.

There's still a focus group

What was the thread about?=

[img1]

ql going steam exclusive.
no stats/ranking

something like that.

Well, Steam does have its own stats system, but I'm not too familiar with it. Some say it can provide better matchmaking. I think the comment about "no more ELO" was regarding third party stats sites.

yea. ive been wondering how ql ranks and ql itself gather/s the data used for match making/elo. is it real time?
how much bandwidth does it all take up?

getting rid of that might help smooth out the game.

No idea how the matchmaking stuff is done by QL... They have a "skillrating" value assigned to players (which is related to tiers) but the formula used isn't really known. Steam's rating system is apparently ELO-based but it doesn't seem like they publicize ELO numbers.

As for QLRanks I think they're just using a spider bot to read the stats from the publicly available profile pages, but there might be more to it than that. With Steam exclusive, there wouldn't be any match results to crawl/index.

QLranks and http://ql.leeto.fi/ use a simple streaming api Sponge wrote for them.

according to that site there are about 3,000 people on every night.
mostly standaloners over steamers it seems lol.

This means we can safely say that:

- QL has 3,000 players.
- CPM has 17 players.
- Warsow has more bots on servers than players.

Yakumo:

Thank you, that is a new link I had not seen before.
While this counts matches, rather than number of players or number of subscribers, it is useful in spotting the overall trend.

The devs can use this chart to claim that all the changes leading up to the Steam release had a net-positive impact.

But at the same time we can see that the trend is downward, and in 2 months. This same chart will show a small net-loss.

Their 1Y subscription model means that there will also have been a small spike in subscriptions coinciding with the first few weeks of the Steam release....while the cancellations from the veterans will not show up until months later.

I guess for now the devs can hide behind these numbers inside Id.
But inside 6 months the ruse will be up. All numbers will be down, including revenue from subscriptions.

This is really good point. I think it will be very much down in 3 months already. bump when you see that

rusty shovel --------> syncterror's face

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEVCGruTB3A

I don't see how adding a dot is a big change.

:D

:((((( why

I called bullshit on the other changes even after being assured they were real so I no longer trust my ability to predict the QL dev team. But at least the other leak had chat logs or whatever.

This is just a guy saying stuff.

Although by this point I've forgotten what the post initially said so I dont remember how realistic it could be

what did he say originally it got edited.

Although by this point I've forgotten what the post initially said so I dont remember how realistic it could be

But from what I can remember it was something about QL going steam only and some server hosting stuff. Thats all I've got

Things that devs talked about months ago.

Slowly planing to go steam only, along with some other consequences.

It's certainly within the realm of possibilities. Assumed the recent steam launch didn't bring the numbers the thing is now probably about to enter a major cost cutting stage (which in fact has been initiated already when dropping the linux/mac clients).

Don't know anything about steam, but the plan likely is to get rid of some of the costly infrastructure they're maintaining right now. Like stripping down the ql web site to a bare minimum, merely redirecting to somewhere else, would probably save them a noticeable amount of money already.

I mean, just recall how the thing started out. Back then Carmack seemed to hope he might be setting a trend with the ingame advertising and such. Never took off though, and ql now seems to be stuck in a dead end while not being really dead at the same time. But the chances of turning it into a cash cow again are practically zero, so from a business perspective the game presumably lost all its appeal.

The game continues to be a halo product for Id Software. They value the brand and its reputation, or they wouldn't host Quakecon every year or have kept QL running so long. Not that I disagree with your point about cost cutting, but I don't think the game not being a direct money maker means it has no business value/appeal to Id.

Sure, that's what I used to be saying. Problem is though that id Software, or remains thereof, aren't free to operate anymore like they want. They're property of Zenimax, who likely paid a handsome sum for the company, and who by now very likely also subsidize id Software, because that branch might not be able to sustain its prolonged development efforts anymore all by itself.

So what I'm imagining is that at some point Zenimax might tell id to either produce something worthwhile or start cutting costs, to the point of even losing their diva status within the company and getting absorbed as just another development division amongst others.

So from a Willits and cohorts point of view, when that's about to happen the priority presumably is to get d4 done no matter what, also to prove that they're able to push something out with Carmack gone, and fuck ql if that proves to be a roadblock money wise. You know, in a do or die fashion.

And whether d4 is going to happen anytime soon when their big "reveal" at last qcon was just another trailer - about which those deplorable fuckers made tox wait for his last game of the day vs dahang - well, to be perfectly frank, I kind of doubt it.

I don't disagree, but the cost of running QL (i.e. whatever the operating loss is) is probably minuscule compared to the company's other expenses/projects, like D4. So I'm not sure QL's operating loss would even be on the radar of top Zenimax execs. Agreed that D4 is probably 'do or die' for Id, outside of engine licensing.

Since the acquisition that id doesn't license their engines anymore, outside Zenimax.

I think it's quite obvious Zenimax bought id with the intent of having it as their engines supplier studio and of course being able to use their franchises. If id does poorly on doom4, just like it did with rage and doom3 (their only three main games in 15 year so far), then it will only continue to exist as a technical studio, not making games themselves anymore, and the next quake will be made by some related company like Raven Software, which isn't a bad thing at all tbh considering that since quake3 that external developers use id's engines and franchises way better than id itself.

And in this spirit a best case scenario might be Zenimax actually trying to take ql out of id's hands in a gentle manner, without publicly humiliating and disgruntling them, and eventually do something better with it. Who knows, good things do occasionally happen.

lol

Fuck Raven, they killed quake4 with that buggy, bandwith intensive multiplayer on release.

F U C K R A V E N
U
C
K
R
A
V
E
N

so all i see is a . does that mean everything will change in programmer lingo?

If it was .* then yes, it would. ( http://www.regular-expressions.info/dot.html )

Ah gotcha, I was close! Still learning :)

What I always meant to ask you, did all the effort you put into q4max ever pay off in one way or another?

not rly

As much as any other hobby gets you - gave me interesting challenges to solve and kept my interest for many months. It also sustained Q4 for a lot longer than it would have lasted for otherwise.

If you mean in terms of getting a job or something, I already had a perfectly good job, and wasn't looking to find a job in the games industry.

Glad to hear there's no regrets. Because from my pov you guys were not only handed the shittiest engine of them all to work with (Carmack's reply to everything that was wrong with it: we leave that to the modders) but also fucked by id themselves when they nullified your work with the ql beta. But, as you said, there's certainly pride to take in keeping the thing afloat for longer than otherwise could have been expected.

But on other hand in Unix '.' is used to describe current folder, so it can mean that nothing will change.

True. "." applies to windows too fyi. Good job it isn't ".." by your logic then.

how does going steam only affect qlranks? i imagine that means they'll move to steamworks, which means accounts will be tied to steamids, so qlranks can just use that instead of account names. what's the problem?

I welcome our steam exclusive overlords. There is gonna be a whole lot of rage when all the wallers and aim assist kids can't win anymore.

I like how this thread suddenly condensed into a singularity "." and then burst into a supermassive weird-sequence hyperdense moronic twat cloud, enveloping everything in its path with a thick layer of pretentious wank, eventually decaying into nothing except for residual traces of background virginity radiation and broken netcode.

this post man, this post .... it made my day.

Perfect

the internet means alot to you doesnt it?

I would have guessed the big change is shutting this mofo down.

no, zenimax still think ql make profit

Yes this future change will almost certainly be the end of QLRanks.

+'ing for a sirax response, not because I like this

Sirax,
I haven't forgotten that your that your implementation of multiplayer ELO/Trueskill is tragically flawed. That you are too lazy to fix it, and that your response to criticism (but...but.. the document says TrueSkill is better) is about as clever as anything Syncerror has come up with this year.

You both deserver to become dusty footnotes in this final chapter of the Quake franchise.

"Final chapter" sounds like the beginning of something.

...last gasp?

Won't prevent you from taking one.

It's not that the document says Trueskill is better, it's EVERYONE that has worked on such things thinks Trueskill is the best.

The argument I had with qlranks.com was not if Trueskill was better than Elo.
The argument was: qlranks did not implement Trueskill correctly.

But when challenged to explain how players can loose points on Qlranks while winning a game, the response was: Trueskill is better than Elo !!

So I'm lumping sirax in with syncerror: Too arrogant to admit when they are wrong, not smart enough to fix their own mistakes.

But when challenged to explain how players can loose points on Qlranks while winning a game, the response was: Trueskill is better than Elo !!

I literally quoted the parts of the paper that explain how that can happen.

How is it tragically flawed? Are you still hung up over occasioanlly losing points for wins?

The multiplayer part is flawed, duel works just fine.

Turns out Trueskill is really really complex, and very difficult to fully understand and codify.
I don't buy for 1sec that either you or sirax cracked that nut.
(evidenced by the fact that you use an Elo scale while claiming to use Trueskill, and that THERE IS NO SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES in Trueskill where the winning player can loose score or Ranking.)

But since you are arrogant SOBs, you couldn't admit that your multiplayer code is neither Elo nor Trueskill, and that it's not perfect.

Instead you simply claimed that you used Trueskill and pretended the agument was about the merits of Trueskill.

THERE IS NO SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES in Trueskill where the winning player can loose score or Ranking

Yes there is, I quoted the exact part of the paper that explains how it can happen.

But since you are arrogant SOBs, you couldn't admit that your multiplayer code is neither Elo nor Trueskill, and that it's not perfect.

First of all, I have nothing to do with QLRanks. I asked Sirax after your last thread and he said they do use TrueSkill, so you're just wrong about that.

Edit: Here you go, I went to the trouble of finding it again:

The TrueSkill skill of a player i is currently displayed as a conservative skill estimate given by the 1% lower quantile mu_i - 3*sigma_i. This choice ensures that the top of the leaderboards (a listing of all players according to mu - 3*sigma) are only populated by players that are highly skilled with high certainty, having worked up their way from 0 = mu_0 - 3*sigma_0.
...
If the skills are expected to vary over time, a Gaussian dynamics factor N (s_{i;t+1}; s_{i;t}; gamma^2) can be introduced which leads to an additive variance component of gamma^2 in the subsequent prior.

Edit: Here you go, I went to the trouble of finding it again:
The TrueSkill skill of a player i is currently displayed as a conservative skill estimate given by the 1% lower quantile mu_i - 3*sigma_i. This choice ensures that the top of the leaderboards (a listing of all players according to mu - 3*sigma) are only populated by players that are highly skilled with high certainty, having worked up their way from 0 = mu_0 - 3*sigma_0.
...
If the skills are expected to vary over time, a Gaussian dynamics factor N (s_{i;t+1}; s_{i;t}; gamma^2) can be introduced which leads to an additive variance component of gamma^2 in the subsequent prior.

Yes, I remember.
And that doesn't mean shit to you, because you can not re-phrase that. It also says nothing that in anyway explains how winning can equal a loss of ranking.

Of course I can rephrase it, but surely a direct quote from the paper is better than hearing it filtered through me?

The system maintains a belief about player skill, represented by a probability distribution over all possible ratings. In order to condense this to a single value they use mu - 3*sigma, where mu is the mean and sigma is the standard deviation of the distribution. This is because it is more stable than the mean - it represents a lower bound on a players skill with 99% confidence.

As you play more games, it gets more confident in your skill estimate, so your standard deviation is lowered. This makes is difficult to raise your rating if you improve, so they make your standard deviation bigger before each calculation to compensate.

If you play a game that was too poorly matched, your true estimate (the mean) goes up by less than the additive factor on your standard deviation. So your displayed rating can go down.

Yes there is, I quoted the exact part of the paper that explains how it can happen.

No you didn't. You tried to pull a fast one, you copied bits and pieces that sounded good.
Honestly: I do not believe that you personally have a detailed understanding of Trueskill.

I asked Sirax after your last thread and he said they do use TrueSkil

Correct, and I claim that sirax lied to you.
Sirax is an arrogant SOB, because instead of fixing his broken code he claims to be using Trueskill, and pretending this nullifies all follow-up questions.

You (obi) are an SOB because you are pretending that you know more about Trueskill than you do, and decided to blindly go to bat for sirax instead of examining the evidence.

What I posted explains exactly how you can lose rating points. Maybe try reading and understanding the paper before raging at people?

Honestly: I do not believe that you personally have a detailed understanding of Trueskill.

Well I actually went and read the paper. Have you tried that? What kind of way is this to argue?

You made a statement and were shown to be incorrect. So now you just accuse people of lying because you can't understand what was given to you.

Obi: you are a bullshit artist.

If you understood Trueskill as well as you claim, you could expand on the subject matter, you could structure an argument that little old me could understand. Instead all you are doing is pointing at 'The paper' and at the snipet to re-posted above.

Those are not the tell tall signs of someone who has mastered the subject as you claim.

I have never claimed to have "mastered" anything and I gave you a full explanation above. Hopefully you will respond to it.

Should I draw you a fucking picture as well?

Should I draw you a fucking picture as well?

I challenge you to do so.

For anyone who happens to be reading along, here is a link to "The Paper" that obi claims he has read link

The reason I don't believe him is simple: You can't actually read that paper. What you can try to do in work through it methodically. I tried and gave up after a few days when it became evident that there was not enough detail in that paper to obtain a full understanding of the algorithms needed to implement Trueskill !

So I stand by my claim: Obi is full of shit. Sirax is full of shit

Obi is trying use a playground bluff, where he makes fun of you for not knowing the word "queef". He doesn't know what it means either. He just keeps saying: "If you don't know I'm not gonna tell you..."

So now you are just going to ignore what I wrote above? I have already given you the explanation.

Here it is again:

The system maintains a belief about player skill, represented by a probability distribution over all possible ratings. In order to condense this to a single value they use mu - 3*sigma, where mu is the mean and sigma is the standard deviation of the distribution. This is because it is more stable than the mean - it represents a lower bound on a players skill with 99% confidence.

As you play more games, it gets more confident in your skill estimate, so your standard deviation is lowered. This makes is difficult to raise your rating if you improve, so they make your standard deviation bigger before each calculation to compensate.

If you play a game that was too poorly matched, your true estimate (the mean) goes up by less than the additive factor on your standard deviation. So your displayed rating can go down.

Here is what he means with a simple example :

Estimate = mean - 3*standardDeviation

BEFORE the match:
mean : 0
standard deviation : 1
estimate = 0 - 3*1 = -3

Result of the match :
mean increased by 1 (it was a victory)
standard deviation increased by 0.5 (poor match)

AFTER the match :
mean : 1
standard deviation : 1.5
estimate = 1 - 3*1.5 = -3.5

Don't take it as a precise example of a situation that could happen with those exact values. It's just there so you can grasp the concept of how a victory can decrease the estimate.

FlashSoul,

I admit that I don't have a full grasp on th Trueskill algorithm, but it's a little more complicated than what you have sketched out.

I did a little research when i still cared about QL, and I could only find one person who actually worked it all out and published the details:Jeff Moser

That guy is way smarter that any of us (including sirax), and he actually codified his finding in an on-line simulator: link

Try it, you can tweak Mu (mean) and sigma (standard deviation) any way you like, the winner CAN NOT loose ranking.

Go ahead plug in mean=0, Standard deviation=1

Now if you want to argue that your above sketch trumps Jeff Moser, fair enough.

I got it to show the winner losing ranking no problem. Just make the teams very unbalanced and use a small sigma value....

Here's a quote from your hero Jeff Moser's blog:

One surprising thing is that if you have a really low standard deviation and play a game that has very bad match quality (see my accompanying paper for details but this usually means a very unfair match), it could be that your TrueSkill goes down after a win.

http://www.moserware.com/2010/03/computing-your-skill.html

Are you done calling people liars yet?

I'm not gonna plug mean=0, sd =1 because, as I specified in the previous post, those values were not meant to be taken like that. I will comply with your little test though.

Try it, you can tweak Mu (mean) and sigma (standard deviation) any way you like, the winner CAN NOT loose ranking.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/74076095/oops.png

Alice before her victory : 24.011
Alice after her victory : 23.971

your picture shows smth quite opposite to what you claim here

It doesn't.

Alice before her victory : 25 - 3*0.333 = 24.011
Alice after her victory : 25 - 3*0.343 = 23.971

Therefor, Alice's conservative skill estimate decreased after her victory.

If you still disagree about something there, please elaborate so I can actually understand what I should explain better. I genuinely don't know what you disagree with exactly so it's kinda hard to refute it.

Ehm apart from me not taking part in the whole syncerror/sponge bashing, these guys were hired by id. It was their job, While sirax dedicated his freetime to improving everyone'sexperience. He and his work will certainly not be forgotten.

quakelivelauncher on linux by FX works really good too :'(

best solution ever.

dump QL...
re-release q3 with the server browser and that shit from QL.
charge a one time fee.
let people run their own servers.
we can play all the mods and maps forever and ever.

instead of the company having to dump money into a project that makes no money....
now they wont have to. everyone wins.

"But I already paid for the game in 1999, and also I have peanut-sized brain that is incapable of understanding basic economics"

Pastebin etc or any other place where this information is posted?

What I'm gathering from the comments:

1. Steam only to employ the use of VAC.

2. Cease and desist for qlranks inbound, presumably using a steam skillrating system or the removal of any such system from the game?

3. ...?

Also, a big thanks to all the folks devoting their resources to their qlranks system (sirax, szr and several more) and their qlranks stream. This group of folks have built an informative and useful system, built in their spare time, that put the official "skill rating" system to absolute shame (admittedly not particularly hard) of which players were/are paying to get there in-game experiences ruined by.

The entire quake live project is just an absolute massive waste of wonderful potential for our beloved genre and genesis of online shooter, of which I hope reflex and others can fill and this game can thankfully be put aside and long forgotten.

Doesn't matter whose fault it is, be it id/bethesda not supplying sufficient resources to the ql team, or the poor use of resources by the ql team itself; still a giant waste, great shame and shadow of what could have been.

What is this thread about and why got the first post deleted?

OP was bullied into deleting its content by weird.

It's one of the longest "is 0.99 really 1?" debates in history of mankind, in a thread about QL going steam only.

That's ESR for you.

So it was about leaked information? Don't see why it got deleted. How many times a QL changelog have been leaked before.. Someone has a screenshot PM me :d

It was never deleted and wasn't really a "leak" since devs talked about this publicly.

OP decided to pull a walter and replace the content with a dot, however none of the admins touched the thread so far.

Alright. Tried to read the thread and gave up really quick. Its just 3 people posting OT stuff again and again . Found my info anyways http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?...=firefox-a

Thanks.

itll be like q3.

So i can use custom pk3's to get red hitsparks for example? Nice.

pffft. i doubt that. lol

i meant no stats and aliasing from one account.

but i would say...

look at the direction ql is going...
do you think it's actually going to get better?

I see it getting worse.
if you think the game has been noobed out...
the next release will probably be even noobier.

well probably have aim assist and locators.

I have absolutely no hope for quake.

This thread is about having an intervention for weird because he is an abusive father.

http://acko.net/blog/to-infinity-and-beyond/

Weird, did you create this? http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/...square-go/

no, why do you ask?

To be clear, he means the concept itself, not that specific website or animation.

sigh....

I think you should get a good reading on the concept of rational numbers.

0.333... is defined as 1/3, therefore 3 * 0.333... = 1
Solved.

Disclaimer: I am not a mathematician, but that's what I learned in school 10 years ago.

not sure why you're pointing at me?
Moron1 claims that there is a difference... To whom I say that if you want to express the difference that you need infinitesimals.
At which point moron2 points to the hyperreals and claims that I'm wrong (while this system includes infinitesimals).

The difference between the 2 systems is pretty much exactly this (in one 0.999 = 1 by definition, in the other there is an infinitesimal difference and the proof of equality takes a lot more work... and depending on how you deal with concepts of infinity this may not even be possible), and they are not equal systems.
While moron2 seems to think that these systems are actually interchangeable moron1 doesn't understand the system at all.

ninja edit: I do not consider myself to be one of the 2 morons ;)

At which point moron2 points to the hyperreals and claims that I'm wrong (while this system includes infinitesimals).

The hyper reals have infinitesmals, but not they don't allow you to divide by zero which is what I was arguing.

I'll try to be careful here and not phrase anything in the form of a question.

I answered this on Comment #287 @ 18:03 CET, 18 March 2013
Which is the first(!) ever notion I make of 0*.
Which I do on your request because you were whining that 0 has different properties in the system that I used to explain to you the concept of an infinitesimal.

Therefor I HAD ALREADY ANSWERED THIS BEFORE YOU ASKED.

I clearly state that if you would like to introduce 0* in a model where 0 is an infinitesimal:
Even that x/0* is undefined. (Which is something I dislike)

Which is what I have been saying all along: you can't divide by zero. You have already conceded the argument.

there never was an argument?

You asked back in 2013 if I could bring back your 0 by which you cannot divide and I said sure define it as 0* = 0 - 0 in my model.

There NEVER was a question... Did it really take you a full year to discover that you cannot read (which I also already pointed out to you in 2013)


Comment #333 @ 19:08 CET, 19 March 2013
clearly you haven't read how I defined 0* yet you think you know all about it... story of this thread innit.... people not reading me but then asking all sorts of irrelevant questions.

Good, people,
How do you have so much time to read/post all this?
I try to find couple of hours per day for really dead stuff (like playing quakelive/reflex) and just can't!

ITS HAPPENING big UPDATE tonight <3

I hope servers will handle that hype!!!11

destiny like hype train

its gonna be so not worth it

praise lord gaben \,,/ o_X \,,/

Weird on rampage.

I like turtles.

2.0 HYPE

Long thread, here is its conclusion:

Weird <3 brandan Weird <3 brandan Weird <3 brandan..

nananananana nananananana :D

but he calls me a bully :( :(
My heart is broken ;(

Teasing is a sign of affection :p

weird is normal
brandan is strange (much pscychology, this is game site no?)
new update is nighttime but is end of development of game

ahha

weird is normal, brandan is weird?

-> brandan is normal?! Nononono you broke the system!

Let's talk about the game and not about each other. Besides steam exclusivity what else is rumored to be changed?

1/3 of the game will change.

:)

That's 0.333 for you

no more stats like q3. so no ql ranks or tiers.
to hard to program lol
one account but you can change your name whenever to whatever.

can't remember the rest

blackberry exlusivity and windows phone 10 THOUSAND

and pro premium faggot status with 3 invisible hats

invisible hats? omg take all my $$$

the amoun t of effort that went into this discussion....

I would of wanted quake 5 to come from that much effort...:P :o :0)

Why does everybody think this is true? I dont know hughjaas but I just figured it was some turd spouting nonsense until everybody started acting as though its legit.

Is he sponges mum or something? What am I missing?

the loadouts happened "surely it's nonsense ? they wouldn't do that, come on..."

now, anything goes concerning quakelive "updates"

But with the loadouts thing he at least had chatlogs to back it up. It was possible at the time that he just faked them but its more proof than this guy gave

I'm not saying this isnt legit, I'm just wondering why everyone seems to think it is.

TLDR, anybody? :D Something went off big time!

tldr : mathematicians are mean

tldr: weird - not a bully

"It's one of the longest "is 0.99 really 1?" debates in history of mankind, in a thread about QL going steam only.

That's ESR for you. "

conclusion:

hate mathematicians not math

why? Its entertaining and fascinating how people who pretend to be mathematicians go for each others throat if the other guy doesn't share their view.

At least you get to feel superior to those idiots, with their 'opinions'

Don't know what you mean. i did not judge anyone here. What i meant by fascinating, is the idea, that mathematics is not as clear cut as i made it out to be, but that it allows for creative and philosophical extensions which lead to different approaches and interpretations. The fun part is all of you arguing the one truth and then going mad throwing insults at each other.

Yeah I see your point. You'll find though that the common denominator in the cases of insult-throwing is Weird

You're thinking about algebra with real numbers.
That is very well defined.

Math itself is not just algebra though. It is much better to think about math as a way of prove based reasoning within philosophy.
Where you take a certain few axioms for granted (which are philosophical ones) and you reason this through proving that you will never reach any contradiction.

looks like it stopped...
Although I don't believe in God, thanks for your prayers anyways :)

It wasn't for you, it was for us.

Doesn't matter to me what the reason was?

Good try! But I will ignore the bait.

Jesus fuck, weird went full Jam-Jam.

<@sponge> there will def be stats still, dunno if there will be a way for third parties to access it

<@sponge> in a theoretical steam exclusive version quakelive.com goes away and all the ui is stored inside the game


and new maps + 1 returning bitter embrace, castle deathstalker, death or glory, drun mummy, industrial revolution, ragnarok, refinery, satanic, solarium, sorrow

Yea but 1 = 0.999... and 0.999... does not exist. Therefore, no returning maps for you.

hey, thanks for that. I don't hang around on irc at all so any "insider knowledge" is welcome

Does anyone want this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

You mean QL going Steam exclusive? Quite a few people, apparently.

http://www.esreality.com/post/2662856/quakelive-steam-and-vac/

The question is when really. If they keep on releasing 3 maps every 3 months all that list is fruitless.


[nemecel]Plus the usual complain that in all this time they didn't release a meaningful update or patch, like improving graphics and whatnot, but instead they pretty much charge for access to RA3 maps.[/nemecel]

Solarium Lol

Hey, this thread is about math. You're off-topic, buddy.

im thinking CTF and CA maps......as usual.....

yp

6-6x6 = 0

BODMAS

Get a room math nerds.

HOLY MOLY

*_*

Over? Analysis I prep course hasn't even begun yet.

Warmup exercise: if I defined "being able to get arbitrarily close to infinity" as the ability to get past any given positive number, would that definition make sense? If so, why. If not, why not.

Where did you get your math diploma btw.

Heidelberg.

Seeing the (understandable) reluctance, these are the followup questions I would insist on having answered before saying anything. In the absence of a lawyer I mean.

* What set of numbers am I talking about
* what's the definition of "getting past" a number here
* what's the definition of infinity here
* what's the definition of "getting close" here.

Answers:

* natural numbers
* counting to a natural number greater the given one
* cardinality of the set of natural numbers
* with the previous answer in mind, that's basically the question.

Why do you keep replying :(

Just go for it!

[img]

I scrolled over a lot of text, I deserve to know at least this: Is weird in the 1 = 0.99(9) camp or not?

yes, 0.99... = 1.

But I also like the idea behind infinitesimals, in which case a proof of equality depends on how you implement (define) equality or the infinitesimals ;)

what's the point of bringing this to random guys on easreality instead of a math forum though.

ask Obi... he brought it up... 2ce....
I just find it an interresting topic :)

I don't seem to find it that interresting that I seek out others to discuss this with though... Just if it happens to cross my path I'll shine a light on it.

I do sometimes bring up prime numbers on a more math related forum. As I wrote my own prime number calculator which works very different from others.... Although it looks a bit like a sieve ;)

I remember you talking about that before. So how does it work?

it works like this.
You first ask me a stupid question.
I tell you the answer to that stupid question.
You then tell my you don't comprehend my answer.
Which leads to me explaining my answer.
Which leads to you not understanding but rephrasing the stupid question as a followup question.
Which leads to me re-explaining my answer.
Which leads to you starting to trolll.
Which leads to me getting frustrated.
Which leads to even more stupid shit from your side.
Which leads to me getting kinda angry.
Which leads to me insulting your braindead head.

Yeah thought so. You don't have shit.

shit is not a thing I want to collect.

i know a guy who made one so big, he wrapped it in plastic wrap and froze it... for later viewing.

I shit you not.

was he named obi?

Incidentally, nonstandard analysis indeed resolves the notational confusion discussed earlier. When looking at the set R^N of all sequences on R for example, we may very well define an equivalence relationship on the subset of convergent sequences by defining two equivalent when they have the same limit. When factoring R^N over that relationship though we end up with something that can't be done useful analysis with, which is pretty much "the" key observation of the whole theory.

So what the nonstandard people do, seeing how convergence, namely "becoming arbitrarily small" on a confinite index set, results in a too coarse equivalence relationship, they refine it and make "being equal" on cofinite index sets the starting point of their model. Which of course is the most intuitive approach you could take when trying to refine the concept to something useful.

Especially, when defining a(n):=1-1/10^n and b(n)=1/10^n, the latter sequence represents an infinitesimal in their model, something not equal to 0 but smaller than any given number on cofinite index sets. And when calling that infinitesimal e for example we do indeed end up with an equation 0.999..+e=1 that properly takes care of all the aspects involved.

And how is this different than what weird proposed?

Well, look at the tan function for example and consider if you can treat the three series pi/2-1/10^n, pi/2+1/10^n and constant pi/2 as "equal". If you find that you can't and are able to pinpoint the reason then you've found the difference.

A visual aid in case of need: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Tangent-plot.svg

really you shouldn't be capable of being this stupid....

First of all you don't explain how anything that I said is different.

But perhaps more importantly.....
Just 1 post above YOU YOURSELF answer the question.

You are atm trying to confuse people by randomly switching between numerical systems and then just claiming that it's wrong. Because the 2 systems are not perfectly equal.
The only reason why you're doing this is because you realized I was right and now are too proud to admit it.

Of course I answered the question. Done that a while ago already. But when somebody still asks what the difference was I guess it's ok to provide a hint.

In particular, what nonstandard analysis does is reintroducing that infamous "infinitesimal" that looks like it was nothing but might as well blow up into your face. Anybody who's ever taken the inverse of a small number should know this, shouldn't he.

But then of course, there's those who think that 0.99.. was as good as 1 if you only kept on going "til infinity". Any notable progress you might want to report back in that department anyhow? Hahahahaha ... (til infinity ...)

Where exactly did you answer his question???

so

tan(0.5pi+e)= -inf
tan(0.5pi-e)= inf
tan(0.5pi)= undefined

where e is the infinitesimal.
is that correct?


quite fascinating way to display it. still can´t see the difference to weirds "model".

Still not? Well, his model suggests that tan(0.5p)= -inf = inf = undefined because his "e" amounts to zero. Obvious enough now?

ahhh omfg thx so much man!!!!!!! I finaly realized the problem we have been adressing for so long!

You can't read.

Really where the f*ck did you get that idea?

I redefined 0 to represent the 'infinitesimal object'.
And after whining of people that they lacked the "real 0" I said that they could allow a notation of 0* if they were so obsessed about a pretty much obsolete symbol.

I think you guys really have some serious miscommunication.because what you described is pretty much exactly what weird came up with. Reintroducing the infinitesimal so that 0.999... +e=1. he then came up with the extremely intuitive notion that inf×e=1 and a lot of confusing notations and mistakes

so to answer the question 0,999... =1? It depends solely on the choice if we want to include infinitesimals or not.

you understood me perfectly imho.
Although I dunno what you mean with "confusing notations and mistakes " ;p

I'm not so sure that 0 is an obsolete symbol. I can't explain it as i know next to nothing about the theory of numbers but it feels wrong to say 0=nothing and it is understandable that people were outraged by it.

Well ye 0 is not "completely useless and obsolete".
But if you were to replace it with an infinitessimal.... it can hold all of it's current important (imo).
Although some would perhaps require a bit of work... Mainly it being the seperator between the positive and negative numbers.
And the definition of 0 - 0 would be fun ofcourse (which is already debated in some thread)

But the possible argumentation in favor / against certain choices is very technical. Not so much philosophically...

No, it doesn't depend on anything. 0.99.. represents the series
0.9
0.99
0.999
and so on. So effectively the series defined by
a(n):=1-1/10^n.
Where the poor clown wrote eg in
http://esreality.com/post/2691593/#pid2687497
that supposedly
0.99999.... = 1
while claiming that you just need to - quoting - "continue on writing 9's infinity many times".

This is like claiming that 1/10^n=0 as n increases. And precisely the point we're talking about. The infinitesimal isn't zero. Which becomes specifically obvious when applying certain functions to it, as we've just done. An observation that doesn't depend on the notion of infinitesimals anyhow, which is merely making more obvious what standard analysis - constantly - tells you to do anyway: distinguish between the sequence and its limit. Because if you don't it might blow up into your face.

So seriously, do I now have yet another one on my hands not being able to make the distinction lying at the very heart of mathematical analysis resp. trying to obfuscate it just to save some dumb face from being exposed as such? If so, what for?

i don´t get why a number is not a number first and can be obtained by a series. e.g. 1/3 = 0.333... or 0.(3) or 33.(3) % or is 1/3 defined by the series 3*10^(-1)+3*10^(-2)...+3*10^(-n)? or does this not represent 1/3 and you claim there is no way to display the number 1/3?

it's noble of you to ask it as if it is a question...
Pretty good strategy.
You are correct though.
A number is not a number because we can write it down. A number is a number because it represents a value.
For instance nobody can write down pi. Nor can anyone write out 0.33... in any other way than a fraction or by using 'special notation' (like ... or 0.(3)).

btw it´s funny that the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999...
comments on the reluctance of math students to accept that "The equality 0.999... = 1 has long been accepted by mathematicians and is part of general mathematical education"

I think that everyone except Weltschmerz think that 0.99... = 1.
Even I stated that if you were to have infinitesimals included in math that it would depend a lot on how you describe the math around it if you can still claim 0.99... = 1 or not.

In general though the inclusion of infinitesimals would have to lead to a somewhat different notation.
Conceptually it's not a large change though.

Which is rubbish.

To completely formalize it, consider the set R^N of all sequences of real numbers again, together with the canonical injection
R -> R^N
defined by x -> (x, x, x, ...) and element wise operations. Now consider the subset K of convergent sequences, on which you may define a function
lim: K -> R
defined by mapping each sequence to its limit. This function naturally induces an equivalence relation on sequences
a(n) ~ b(n) iff lim(a(n))=lim(b(n)).

So, with respect to this equivalence relation only I might consider those two sequences equal because
lim(0.999...) = lim (1) = 1

But that doesn't make things generally equal of course. Information is lost during the process of merely considering the limit of a sequence and not the sequence itself anymore. And how much information is lost is what we've just seen by means of the tangens or inverse functions.

In particular, the lim function doesn't generally commute with arbitrary other functions, saying that lim*f isn't generally equal f*lim for arbitrary functions f. As we've just seen that the limit of inverses doesn't generally equal the inverse of the limit.

And that's what everybody knows who's ever done the slightest amount of meaningful math in his life. Like working with continuous and non-continuous functions. Differentiating functions. Etcetera etcetera.

So what that article does is merely a notational gimmick by leaving away the "lim" part, which of course anybody, if asked, would tell you is supposed to be implied. And which is a very unfortunate attempt at drawing attention at calculus, because it encourages the kind of total confusion our poor clown here is suffering from.

Which is the reason by the way why nonstandard analysis has developed a model that properly reflects the situation again, specifically also for pedagogical reasons. It basically throws out all that confusing "limit taking" process some simpletons seem to have a hard time wrapping their head around and amends the real numbers with additional, historically very well known, entities like infinitesimals that allow for a representation of the whole picture in terms of pretty much purely algebraic operations:
0.999.. + e = 1
with e an infinitesimal, and you may now entirely forget about the limit taking process there.

So that's the idea, and reportedly it's been quite successful in educational approaches so far. Something the writer of that crappy article, who by the way would readily agree to everything I've said if his education was worth a dime, surely might want to pay some attention to.

So we have a series a (n)=1-1/10^n
This series is infinite and it converges to 1. So why do you think there is information lost if we take the limit of the series? Don't you propose to 'continue til infinity', if you ask to look at the sequence and not it's limit?

Why do I think information is lost by taking the limit? Consider the function f(x):=1/(x-1). And then tell me if lim(f(an))=f(lim(an)). If they aren't the same some information must have been lost somehow, no? Somehow, the limit process seems to treat things as equal which aren't entirely. No?

In other words, lim: K -> R isn't a bijection. In fact, the number of sequences mapping to any given limit has at least the cardinality of R itself. Didn't expect, after so many repetitions of the same basic observations, to again have to point them out.

rofl.

I'm sure you are a very capable mathematician. I just hoped you could answer my easy non formal questions with easy non formal answers. If this is not possible fair enough. But i don't feel like puttingin the time to learn the formalities if you don't answer my questions. So what about the number 1/3? What is its decimal representation? And what is its representation as a sequence?

Actually that way of writing down a series is kind of confusing.
As you are trying to show the "series" as if it's a "function".

Being that you insert an N and then obtain a number.
Like:
F(1) = 1 - 1 / 10^1 = 0.9
F(2) = 1 - 1 / 10^2 = 0.99
etc.

And that when you insert "inf" intuitively you'd say that you get 0.99...

But this way of writing is not a series but an equation.
A series is written as a sum.
Sum(for x = 0; x < inf) : 9 / 10^x

So you'd write it out as
9 / 10 + 9 / 100 + 9 / 1000 + 9 / 10000 + .....
Which is the same as saying the Sum(for x = 0; x < inf) : 9 / 10^x

This is not really "needed yet" but given that the "function like notation" is intuitively resulting in a number... You'll start making mistakes along the way.

Poor fellow, any sequence represents a function. Didn't anybody tell you yet? That's pretty much 2nd day Analysis I.

More specifically, the definition a(n):=1-1/10^n for all natural numbers n defines a function a: N->R. Gee, no wonder you're struggling that hard.

Edit: oh, and any convergent series can be written as sequence and vice versa. Conceptually there's no difference whatsoever. Was that 2nd day or 3rd? Can't really remember anymore.

don't they teach you on day 1 that a series is a SUM of a sequence?
I don't exclude the sequence from having any function, nor do I exclude the sequence from being described using a function. I just state that what you give is not a series.

At the very least it's not the series you want it to be.
Because a(1) = 0.9, a(2) = 0.99
Gives that the sum of just these 2 parts would be 1.89, not 0.99.

Quite unsurprisingly you got it mixed up again, poor fellow. A series is defined as a sequence, namely the sequence of its partial sums, and not as "sum of a sequence". Accordingly is the limit of a series defined as the limit of its sequence of partial sums.

Of course, any sequence might also be represented as sequence of partial sums of the differences of its elements. That's why the two concepts are pretty much equivalent.

So, pray tell me, to what level of retardation exactly are you planning to take this?

Edit: oh, and "a" is the sequence of course. In the context of our discussion, I guess not even a chimp would try adding those up.

Ahhh so a(x) = 1 - 1 / 10^x
According to yourself is:
More specifically, the definition a(n):=1-1/10^n for all natural numbers n defines a function a: N->R
AND
Edit: oh, and "a" is the sequence of course

Right.....
So you have a function which is a sequence, which has a single part (1 - 1 / 10^n) which is non recursive.
But it's a sequence none the less....

Ok you lost me....
But well done tricking us into thinking you have a math degree.

Look poor fellow:
0.9
0.99
0.999
...
was the sequence we're talking about, right?

Now try if you can see how the following equations hold
0.9 = 1-1/10
0.99 = 1-1/10^2
0.999 = 1-1/10^3
or generally
0.99..9 <- n 9s = 1-1/10^n

In other words, a(n):=1-1/10^n for n element of N\{0} is precisely the sequence we're talking about. I'll admit though, some primary school level arithmetic was involved there, so probably a little too much to ask from you to make the connection.

I believe you've kind of answered the question about the level of retardation though, so I guess at least in that department we've made some progress now.

If I recall correctly (omfg ow no it's just a few posts up)
I said the following:

As you are trying to show the "series" as if it's a "function".

Being that you insert an N and then obtain a number.
Like:
F(1) = 1 - 1 / 10^1 = 0.9
F(2) = 1 - 1 / 10^2 = 0.99
etc.

And now you say

0.9 = 1-1/10
0.99 = 1-1/10^2
0.999 = 1-1/10^3
or generally
0.99..9 <- n 9s = 1-1/10^n

Which.... To me! sounds very similar.
And it does not sound like a series.

As to which I commented that:
This is not really "needed yet" but given that the "function like notation" is intuitively resulting in a number... You'll start making mistakes along the way.

So, is that what you're having a problem with? That the sequence you brought up - 0.99.. and then adding 9s "til infinity" - results in a sequence of numbers? What did you expect, apples? Gulden? Please share.

I was simply pointing out that what you have created is not a series.
You might call it a series... but it's not.

The correct series would be
Sum(for x = 0; x < inf) : 9 / 10^x

You're also allowed (imo) to use a recursive function like:
F(x) = 9/10^x + F(x+1)
Where you are then forced to call this function with x = 1.
This is me being generous with mathematical notation though...

The difference is that what you're describing is a function, while what I'm describing is a series.
A function outputs a number based on an input, a series doesn't have an input.

You would have a problem like "inf is not a number, so I cannot put it in my function to obtain 0.99...".
Or you would be able to show that your infinitesimal must be a number because you have to insert a number into the function and thus 1 - A(<your number>) = the infinitesimal.
False conclusions like that... Which I am confident that you have many of.

Look poor fellow, if you had properly read that shoddy article you're constantly referring to you'd have understood that your improvised "Sum(for x = 0; x < inf) : 9 / 10^x" needs a definition, because what an "infinite sum" is supposed to mean needs to be defined. And your shoddy article itself says:
"the sum of a series is defined to be the limit of the sequence of its partial sums"

Now make at least a feeble attempt at comprehending, what this would mean for our situation. Like, what would this sequence of partial sums mean to you
0.9
0.9 + 0.09
0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009
...

Do you recognize your much beloved "series" there? Good, because when you add together each of those partial sums - which is generally ok with a finite set of summands even though it might look like a high risk enterprise to you - you end up with this
0.9
0.99
0.999
...
which is exactly the sequence a(n).

Seriously, it's kind of saddening to see you failing so hard at the literally most basic level. And that where I already told you that sequences and series are just two sides of the same coin.

Sad. Very, very sad.

ok the prev post here (before the edit) was somewhat unnecessarily harsh....
But anyways... if you can't see why I pointed this out and why I'm right....
Well then I'm not the best person to argue further. As I would get pretty damn insulting if I tried and got frustrated :D

You know, I really don't give a flying fuck about you. What I care about though are those who might fall for the pretentious and barely understood rubbish you're throwing around. And this particularly in view of a beautiful subject like mathematics, which basically comprises some of the most useful results passed on to us by thousands of years worth of hard working generations. And seeing this gift being abused by you in the most reckless and dumbfounding manner, that's a point for sure where any self respecting person has to feel called upon and intervene.

That you don't understand it doesn't mean that others can't.

This pepidda guy for instance has a lot more understanding about math than you will ever have.

Btw I altered the above post while you were writing yuor reply... And I can somewhat understand your reply as like I said in the edit I was unnecessarily harsh ;)

But on the other side I don't say ANYTHING which would dumb down math.
You on the other hand claim the most rediculous things and can't distinguish between a number and a series. Nor do you have a clear idea of what an infinitesimal is and you're going nuts on really fair remarks made by others.

Number and a series?

a(n) isn't a number it's a sequence of numbers, defining a value for each n element of N\{0}. For the twentieth time. And the partial sums of your series are also a sequence. And the sequence of those partial sums is precisely equal to the a(n):=1-1/10^n.

You do realize that it's ok to write 0.9+0.09 as 0.99? I mean, I can see you how would be struggling there, but you really can put an equal sign in between there. 0.9+0.09=0.99 for sure. Trust me just this one time!

Same statement holds for all other elements of the sequence.

Dunno what you're babbling about.
It seems like you either confuse a number with a digit... Or a number with a series... Or a function with a series... or something....
I dunno.

0.9 + 0.09 = 0.99 yes.
Just like 1 - 0.01 = 0.99

But:
0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009 + .... is a series of infinit length
0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009 could be read as a series of length 3. (it's not regularly done so but I do this as an example)

While
1 - 0.001 is not a series of length 3.
It's equal to the number you get when you run through the series of 0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009 but it is not a series.

You still didn't understand your shoddy article? So here it is again:

0.9 + 0.09 + 0.009 + .... needs to be defined. And the very definition is the sequence
0.9
0.9+0.09
0.9+0.09+0.009
...

Each line there makes for a so called "partial sum". And the sequence of lines is the sequence of partial sums. Which is exactly my sequence a(n), which should be easy enough to see if you're capable of basic addition.

I mean, I know I probably have to repeat it to you a gazillion times now, so I'll take the liberty and just refer you here to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_%28mathematics%29#Definition

Feel free to report back when you've understood a single thing. But please check with somebody else first, that it is really the case.

a sequence is a set of numbers....
Taking the sum of certain elements of a sequence of numbers is called the "partial sum".
Taking the "partial sum" of all of the elements is called "a series".

In none of the above situations is what you described the wanted series.

You are allowed to call it a sequence though if you'd say that a(n) describes the set of "A" which has "n" members.
But the members would be {0.9, 0.99, 0.999, 0.9999....}
The series of this set would be close to 1.9 (not the exact limit btw...)

Dunno where you want to blame me for your failing.

I'm starting to feel sorry for you...
You've tried so hard to learn math... but nobody ever told you that you need to understand it.

Ow well I'm not gonna teach you.

I approve ;)

Also, congrats with the update. I hope id goes bankrupt and sells Quake to valve.

i think it's fair to say that weird should have his own user level

Imo I've shown buddha like patience.

Weird
Posts: 4097
Popularity: Not bully

Sorry for comming so late to the nerd party.
What was the question you guys were discussing? With the limit thing? If '1 = 0.99...' ? To answer this question one should first agree about the context in which both sides of the equation are to be taken. They certainly are not equal as unicode strings, for example =)

If we consider '2=1+1', an equation that most people would certainly agree holds, then both sides also dont agree as strings. So to come to the conclusion, that "2=1+1" holds "mathematically" one has to interpret both sides first.

You can think of this as a type declaration in computer science. If you want to compare two objects and assign a boolean value to the outcome of this test, then they have to be instances of the same class and this class has to have an "equality operator". You can't compare the integer 5 with the string "QUAD NOW!", for example.

Stretching it a bit, one could also interpret both sides of "2=1+1" as finite formal sums of integers. A bit like a (finite) one-dimensional array of integers. Then the left hand side is the array [2] and the right hand side is [1,1]. These don't even have the same dimensions, so can't be equal as arrays. If we try really hard to interpret them as equal, we could try to see the left hand side as the array [2,0] but still, this is different from [1,1]. If we use "," or "+" in our notation of an array really makes no difference, as long as we treat the symbol as a formal seperator, not as an addition operator of the entries.

What, if we actually treat "+" as an operator on integers, like many people would automatically do, when presented with the equation "2=1+1"? Of course, 1+1 yields an integer. So we can compare both sides in the realms of integers. Both sides agree as integers, but not as strings!

Clarifying what we mean by the expression "0.99...." and choosing the correct realm where to interpret the "="-test with "1" is equally easy. Let's be clear about the definitions, then the answer will present itself to us =)

a) If by "0.99...." we mean a string, then the string "1" is not equal to this string.

b) If by "0.99..." we mean the sequence of formal (!) finite sums
S_n="0*10^0+9*10^(-1)+...+9*10^(-n)" for n positive integer and by "1" we mean the sequence of formal finite sums
T_n="1*10^0+0*10^(-1)+...+0*10^(-n)" then these two sequences don't agree. This is trivial, since the equality of sequences is checked by looking at each index (like string comparison) and S_n is different from T_n, not only for some n, but even for all n!

c) What if we interpret the "+" in the formal finite sums of b) as addition operator? This led us to the tremendous insight, that "2=1+1". Maybe it will do the trick again?
So "0.99..." stands for a sequence (indexed by natural numbers n) of rational numbers 0.9, 0.99, 0.999 etc. "1" stands for the constant sequence 1, 1, 1, etc. Of course, these are different sequences, so "1=0.99..." is false in this sense.

So it seems the two expressions are not equal, after all? Until now, all comparisons looked pretty formal, no convergence/limit/neighbourhood considerations at all! Well, it gets a little more complicated but also more interesting, if you introduce what is called a "metric" on the rationals and realize there are some special sequences of rational numbers:

As soon as you realize 1*1=1 and 2*2=4 and 1<2<4 you might ask yourself, is there some number x, such that x*x=2. If it exists, it should possibly be somewhere between 1 and 2. It turns out (and Euklid showed this) that there is no rational number x with this property. On the other hand there are sequences a(n) of rational numbers that have the property that a(n)*a(n) comes arbitrarily close to 2 for growing n.

We very much would like to use these sequence a(n) just as a rational number and treat like the square root of 2. Turns out, this idea brings you very close to the definition of the real numbers!
The only problem is: If we have two series of rational numbers, that have the property that their squares come arbitrarily close to 2, which one should we take to be "the" square root of 2?
And this problem will certainly occur, since if we take some nice sequence a(n) with a(n)*a(n) coming closer and closer to 2, then just change some entries at the beginning of a and you will end up with another nice sequence, different form a, that you would also like to call the square root of 2.

Now comes THE definition ((c) by A.-L. Cauchy~1820) that will resolve all problems :
A real number is defined to be an equivalence class of sequences of rational numbers, such that late members of the sequences lie arbitrarily close ("Cauchy-sequence"). Here, two such sequences are called equivalent, if they differ only by a sequence that comes arbitrarily close to the constant 0-sequence.

THIS IS IT. I never said, Calculus was easy. =) Once you understand this definition and its implications, you can truly and honestly admire the beauty of it, discuss limits with people on the internet and go-on with the rest of your 1-st semester curriculum =) Honestly, I think this is the most important and hardest to grasp definition in every math students education.

Coming back to "1=0.99...":
Interpreted as real numbers, the left hand side represents the equivalence class of the constanst sequence of rational numbers a(n)=1, 1, 1,...
The right hand side represents the equivalence class of the sequence b(n)= 0, 0.9, 0.99, ... of rational numbers.
Are these Cauchy-sequences? Yes! Constant sequences are always Cauchy (trivial exercise, that you should do). And b(n)-b(m)=0.0...009...9 with m 0's in the middle and (n-m) 9's at the end. So b(n)-b(m)<0.0...01=10^(-m) for all n>m and hence this is Cauchy.

Hence both sequences of rationals represent real numbers! But do they agree??? Yes! Because, a(n)-b(n)=10^(-n) and this comes arbitrarily close to the constant 0 sequence. Hence by definition both sequences lie in the same equivalence class and are equal as real numbers. That was easy!

tldr: 1=0.99... when interpreted as real numbers: The Cauchy-sequences they represent, differ only by a sequence tending to zero.

welcome to the nerd party.

I guess you can best sum up the full discussion by asking yourself this:
Is 0.99.. a rational number?
If so which?

But anyway you can read the above discussion and find out ;)

Yes, 0.99.. is a rational number x where x is embedded into the reals via the constant sequence x,x,x...

This x is 1. as was proved in my previous comment.

I would agree with you, Weltschmerz would not.

That's around 90pc of the latest posts...
However the whole thing started going berzerk when, a year ago, I made a note of a certain (imo) intuitive notion of infinitesimals to explain how you could change parts of math in order to have a difference between 0.99.. and 1.

Namely to "reform the notation 0 to an infinitesimal" where this infinitesimal would be infinitely close to 0.
To achieve this we rewrite (this new) 0 as 1 / inf.
And then one could use that notation to claim that 1 - 0 = 0.99...
and that 0.99.. + 0 = 1.

Now this notation has a lot of (extremely logical) if's and buts accompanied with it... Which I all answered while others went full retard.
When they then started to repeat their questions I got a bit pissed ;)

The misunderstanding existing because if you define 0 to be 1 / inf it's not within the reals anymore, yet 0 - 0 would be within the reals (namely being what is the current 0 in the real numbers).
And the "same notation" of 0 while it resembles something slightly different made people go mental.
Even though you can treat an infinitesimal 0 almost the same as you do with the "real 0".

Its refreshing to see someone post who is not angry and annoyed yet :D welcome! Nice read and very easy to follow.

this thread giving me a steady supply of lols

As well as a steady supply of tl;dr.

Were the big changes that it's going to suck a massive amount of black dicks and it'll die a slow and painful death?