Oh yes, I popped a few pills for my math final... Options

[Terzin1]

I dont think you guys have any idea about what i think of math. I dont hate it, i am just not good at it and i think i know the reason. It is not that I cannot remember the formulas or the equations or even the derivatives, it is that I think that I cannot understand why math was created the way it was. It was someone who decided that we should count by 1's. Why not 1/2's or anything?
Heres what confuses me. (this is not a math problem so bear with me) If you have a line that is 4 inches, a physical line that you can see, it is possible to divide that line into 3, 100 percent equal, parts. but if you have a line that equals 4, meaning you cannot see the line but it is represented as 4, then there is no way to divide that into 3 equal parts. the number comes out to 1.33333333333333....... and on forever. If it goes on forever then there is no end. If that is the case than how can you divide a line into three separate parts just fine? Theoretically, i think there should be an end and thus this is why i think math is flawed. Try and take that 3.9999999... x 3 again and you will see that it will not equal the whole number 4. There must be a problem.

[orvillescelica]

i dont think you understand tho. a piece of that number 4 is getting lost somewhere. 1.33333333333333 x 3 is not 4; its 3.99999999999. your calculator is rounding the infinite decimal into a fraction but in reality, it should not be a fraction. where did that .0000000000001, or however small a piece it is. where did that go?

One problem is the line itself. If you have a physical line that you yourself created, or that an andvanced line making machine created, it is most impossible for that line to be EXACTLY 4 units. In today standards, a tolerence of +-0.0001 when making something is extrodinary. So in reality, your line is 4+- 0.0001 which is much much more than the 1E-15 you are worrying about. And when you cut it into 3 pieces, you are not going to get three equal pieces, you are going to get one that is 1.34 and another that is 1.32, etc... So really, you cant compare reality to math. Because it is actually the opposite from what you said, Math is perfect and reality is flawed.