you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 8 points 3 years ago (2 children)

One of the pieces is actually 0.33333....4

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    If you cut perfectly, which is impossible because you won't count or split atoms (and there is a smallest possible indivisible size). Each slice is a repeating decimal 0.333... or in other words infinitely many 3s. (i don't know math well that's just what i remember from somewhere)

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    If the number of atoms is a multiple of 3, then you can split it perfectly.

    For example say there’s 6 atoms in a cake, and there’s 3 people that want cake. Each person gets 2 atoms which is one third of the cake.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago*

    The main problem is simply that math is "perfect" and reality isn't. Since math is an abstract description of causality while reality doesn't/can't really "do" infinity.

    But if you really wanted to, you could bake a cake in a lab with a predetermined number of atoms and then split that cake into 3 perfect slices. However, once you start counting multiples(like atoms in a cake) you would no longer get 1/3 or 0.3 because you are now dividing a number bigger than 1(the number of atoms) so you would't get a fraction(0.3) You would get a whole number.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    Technically no

    0.3333.... repeats infinitely. The 0.333...4 is not an infinitely repeating number. And since 0.333... is, there's no room to add that 4 anywhere

    Which is why adding them up you get 0.999..... which is exactly and completely equal to 1

  • source
  • parent