I’d just say that not all fractions can be broken down into a proper decimal for a whole number, just like pie never actually ends. We just stop and say it’s close enough to not be important. Need to know about a circle on your whiteboard? 3.14 is accurate enough. Need the entire observable universe measured to within a single atoms worth of accuracy? It only takes 39 digits after the 3.
The problem is, that’s exactly what the … is for. It is a little weird to our heads, granted, but it does allow the conversion. 0.33 is not the same thing as 0.333… The first is close to one third. The second one is one third. It’s how we express things as a decimal that don’t cleanly map to base ten. It may look funky, but it works.
I’d just say that not all fractions can be broken down into a proper decimal for a whole number, just like pie never actually ends. We just stop and say it’s close enough to not be important. Need to know about a circle on your whiteboard? 3.14 is accurate enough. Need the entire observable universe measured to within a single atoms worth of accuracy? It only takes 39 digits after the 3.
The problem is, that’s exactly what the … is for. It is a little weird to our heads, granted, but it does allow the conversion. 0.33 is not the same thing as 0.333… The first is close to one third. The second one is one third. It’s how we express things as a decimal that don’t cleanly map to base ten. It may look funky, but it works.
pi isn’t even a fraction. like, it’s actually an important thing that it isn’t