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I wanted to prove to myself that $.9999... = 1$ so I wanted to show that:

$N = 9/10 + 9/100 + 9/1000 + 9/100000 + ...$

or more formally, $N = 9S$ where

$S = \sum_{k=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{10^k}$

Then multplying by $10$ I get

$10S = \sum_{k=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{10^{k-1}} = \sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{10^{k}}$

Subtracting I get

$10S - S = \sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{10^k} - \sum_{k=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{10^{k}} = \frac{1}{10^0} = 1$

So if $9S = 1$, then $S = 1/9$, and $N = 9S = 1$, proof completed.

  1. Is this proof correct?

  2. What is it exactly that allows me to multiply an infinite series by $10$ and have it be a valid transformation? To my "ignorant intuition" this seems like taking something infinite and making it $10$ times infinity, which I don't know what that really means.

  3. What is it that allows me to shift indexes like I did to move $k$ down from $1$ to $0$? Similar to question 2 above. We shift and yet do not have to touch or manipulate the upper bound of infinity at all. I know that "infinity minus one" is sort of a weird notion but I don't understand what it means or why we can default it back to infinity, whereas in any other context when we change bounds we change them on both lower and upper.

Asaf Karagila
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AJJ
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    There are just infinitely many terms. It converges to a finite number. So no problem in multiplying by 10 – N.S.JOHN Aug 10 '16 at 15:03
  • How does multiplying by $10$ affect the formal definitions for convergence? Do we say that something is a number if it converges to it? I thought limits were more like "what happens when we get really close but never quite there" – AJJ Aug 10 '16 at 15:03
  • The given reasoning is correct. You do not have FINITE many $9$'s in which case the number would be less than $1$. Intuitively, you can understand the limit as follows : No matter, how many $9's$ we have, we keep below $1$, BUT if we fix a real number $s<1$, there is some number of $9's$ , such that $0,9999\cdots >s$. So, the limit must be $1$. – Peter Aug 10 '16 at 15:05
  • I am trying to understand all of this on a more formal level so I don't have to rely on intuition, which to my current state of mind, does not understand infinity – AJJ Aug 10 '16 at 15:06
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    The answer to your question lies in understanding the manipulation of limits, which is all these series really are. For instance, if a sequence $x_n$ has limit $L$, then the sequence $ax_n$ has limit $aL$ for any real number $a$. This justifies your first step. Another thing you might like to consider is that you probably have no qualms with multiplying $\pi$ by 2 to get $2 \pi$. But the decimal expansion of $\pi$ is just as infinite as for $.999...$ – Mr. Chip Aug 10 '16 at 15:06
  • Can you explain what you actually mean when you write $0.999...$? Is it an infinite sequence of summands? Is it a limit of ${0, 0.9, 0.99, ...}$? Is something else? Likewise, what definition of real numbers you operate with? – Abstraction Aug 10 '16 at 15:08
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    This question was asked multiple times here in a very similar way. – Peter Aug 10 '16 at 15:08
  • possible duplicate:http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/11/is-it-0-999999999-ldots-1-true – Taha Akbari Aug 10 '16 at 15:18
  • What do you mean by $\infty-1$? Subtraction is defined in the reals, but $\infty$ is not an element there. – fosho Aug 10 '16 at 15:24
  • As in if I had $\sum_{k=1}^{n} \frac{1}{10^{k-1}}$ and shifted index I'd get $\sum_{k=0}^{n-1} \frac{1}{10^k}$ (see how $n$ goes to $n-1$). But if we have a sum like $\sum_{k=1}^{\infty} \frac{1}{10^{k-1}}$ and shift index it's just $\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{1}{10^{k}}$ (upper bound $\infty$ in both cases) – AJJ Aug 10 '16 at 15:25
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    This "infinite sum" is obtained via the limit of partial sums. So it comes down to the fact the limit is linear (so ten times the limit of a sequence is the limit of ten times that sequence). – Joel Cohen Aug 10 '16 at 15:52

4 Answers4

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The manipulations you did are valid for convergent series. Therefore your proof is incomplete because you didn't prove that the series is actually convergent.

Fortunately the convergence in this case is easy to show: The sequence of partial sums is strictly increasing (all terms of the series are positive), and each of the terms of that sequence is less than $1$. A strictly increasing sequence that is bound from above converges.

Here's a proof that shows that the partial sums are bounded by $1$ without knowledge of the result, by virtue of manipulations analogue to the manipulations you did in the infinite series:

Be $s_n = \sum_{k=1}^n \frac{9}{10^k}$ the $n$-th partial sum. Clearly, $s_1=\frac{9}{10}<1$. Furthermore, it is easy to check that $s_{n+1} = (s_n + 9)/10$, thus if $s_n<1$ then $s_{n+1} < (1+9)/10 = 1$. Therefore by induction, all $s_n<1$.

To see why establishing convergence is important, consider the following series: $$S = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + \ldots$$ Obviously, $$S = 0 + S = 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + \ldots$$ But then, \begin{aligned} 0 &= S - S\\ &= (1-0) + (1-1) + (1-1) + (1-1) + \ldots\\ &= 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + \ldots\\ &= 1 \end{aligned}

So why can you multiply the terms of the series by $10$ (or actually any number $c$) and get $10$ times the result?

Well, the usual definition of convergence of a series is as follows:

$\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} a_k = a$ if for every $\epsilon > 0$ you can find an $N_\epsilon$, so that for each $n>N_\epsilon$ you have $\left|\sum_{k=0}^n a_k - a\right| < \epsilon$.

So now to prove that $\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} ca_k = ca$, you have to find an $N'_\epsilon$, so that for each $n>N'_\epsilon$ you have $\left|\sum_{k=0}^n ca_k - ca\right| < \epsilon$. However note that the latter is now a finite product, and thus you can move the factor $c$ out of the sum. For $c=0$, the statement is obviously true, so we only have to consider $c\ne 0$. But then, we can reformulate the condition as $\left|\sum_{k=0}^n a_k - a\right| < \epsilon/\left|c\right|$, and since $\sum a_k$ converges to $a$, and thus we see that $N'_\epsilon = N_{\epsilon/\left|c\right|}$ works.

The case of the shift is even easier: You effectively have replaced the series $$a_0 + a_1 + a_2 + \ldots$$ by the series $$0 + a_0 + a_1 + a_2 + \ldots$$ Adding $0$ obviously doesn't change the finite sum, and then we see that $N'_\epsilon = N_\epsilon+1$ covers the exact same terms for the modified sequence.

You've also used a third operation which you didn't specifically mention: You subtracted the two series element-wise. The proof that this is allowed is similar to the previous ones, but slightly more complicated because you've now got two series. But again, you use the fact that you can do the manipulation for finite sums, and the fact that both series individually converge.

celtschk
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  • I've seen similar techniques used to prove that the sum of natural numbers is $-1/12$ by taking advantage of weird patterns in Grandi series, where the answer changes depending on where you do your grouping: $(1, -1), (1, -1), (1, -1)...$ vs. $1, (-1, 1), (1, 1) ...$ – AJJ Aug 10 '16 at 16:39
  • @ArukaJ: Also, to prove convergence of the infinite series, there is no way to do so without essentially going through the finite case first, as Peter's answer does. But the rest of celtschk's answer correctly explains why the manipulations you did are correct, once you have convergence. This is helpful in general because you often can compare series to the geometric series to prove convergence, after which you can manipulate them the way you did. – user21820 Aug 14 '16 at 05:48
  • OK, after re-reading I notice that my formulation might be misinterpreted by reading "the terms" as "the terms of the series" instead of "the terms of the sequence" as I meant it. I'll clarify. – celtschk Aug 14 '16 at 06:21
  • @celtschk: Yup I see that the original phrasing was ambiguous and could be interpreted correctly. The new phrasing is perfect, so I've deleted my first comment. By the way I still maintain that the easiest way to show your claim (that the partial sums are bounded from above) is via the finite case. – user21820 Aug 14 '16 at 07:28
  • @user21820: I've now added an elementary proof of the boundedness, which does not rely on knowing the geometric sum. – celtschk Aug 14 '16 at 08:44
  • Nice! I'd argue that it's exactly the same core structure as the geometric sum because $s_n + \frac9{10^{n+1}} = s_{n+1} = \frac1{10} (s_n+9)$ also gives the geometric sum instantly. But yours is now self-contained and as you say does not use the finite sum. Wait, I change my mind. You did use the finite sum, which in this case is $1$. In general you would need to find the finite sum first before you can use it for your argument of boundedness! =) – user21820 Aug 14 '16 at 09:18
  • @user21820: All I need is an upper bound (which I may guess). For example, if I had taken $10$ instead of $1$ as upper bound, I would have found that $s_{n+1} = (s_n+9)/10 < 19/10 < 10$, therefore the whole sequence is upper-bounded by 10, which is all I need (besides increasing) to conclude convergence. – celtschk Aug 14 '16 at 10:19
  • @celtschk: Oh yes you're absolutely right. What was I thinking... – user21820 Aug 14 '16 at 10:26
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This is just one of the limit laws expressed in series form: if $c \in \mathbb R$ and $\displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^\infty a_k$ is a convergent series, then $\displaystyle \sum_{k=1}^\infty c a_k$ is also convergent and moreover $$\sum_{k=1}^\infty c a_k = c \sum_{k=1}^\infty a_k.$$

Umberto P.
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The formula for a finite geometric series is

$$\sum_{j=0}^k q^j=1+q+\cdots +q^k=\frac{1-q^{k+1}}{1-q}$$

In the case $|q|<1$ the term $q^{k+1}$ tends to $0$, if $k$ tends to $\infty.$ Therefore, the sum converges and has value $\frac{1}{1-q}$ in this case because the denominator is not $0$.

Your concrete example leads to $$\frac{9}{10}(1+\frac{1}{10}+\frac{1}{100}+\cdots)=\frac{9}{10}\frac{1}{1-\frac{1}{10}}=\frac{9}{10}\cdot \frac{1}{\frac{9}{10}}=\frac{9}{10}\cdot\frac{10}{9}=1$$

Peter
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More simple, you have $$0.999\cdots = 0.999\cdots$$ then you multiply by ten on both sides

$$ 10 \times 0.999\cdots = 9.999\cdots=9+0.999\cdots$$ then substract $0.999\cdots$ from both sides

$$10 \times 0.9999\cdots-0.9999\cdots=(10-1)\times 0.999\cdots = 9$$ but $10-1=9$ so simplify $9$ from both sides and you get the equality $0.999\cdots=1$

Daniel
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