It might be interesting to see how people think which explanations are the ones that best convince them -- Huntard and Straggler and any other lurkers who had trouble with this issue.
Aside from a couple off-topic posts, I've lurked here for a while. With regard to this thread, it seems to me that in order to
not be found at night in a deserted lot in Chippewa Falls, naked, shivering, malnourished and bleeding from multiple self-inflicted shiv gashes, you need to fall into one of the following categories:
1. Geniune, honest mathematician
2. Not a mathematician, but still really smart with things like physics or drink mixology
3. Not a mathematician but with a
rudimentary grasp of calculus or other maths (thus not too intellectually invested in your own opinion either way)
4. Don't care, but like to rattle the animals' cages all the same
I think I fall somewhere in the #3 category. I can grasp the concept as put forth, and since I'm blatantly ignorant to most of the rationale for objecting to why 0.9999.... should
not equal 1, I can happily whistle "Bolero" as I scroll through this thread. It seems like a very straightforward idea on the surface, and as a committed #3, the surface is all I really care to see.
Thanks for this discussion.
Have a good one.