/prog/rammer here, need urgent help

hello /sci/, long time no see
There is currently a troll on /prog/, and would greatly appreciate your help.

Basically, the troll is trying to prove that 0.999~ =/= 1
Here are some of his arguments
http://stormtower.invisionplus.net/?mforum=stormtower&showtopic=97

I'm wondering if the maths genius' on this board can rip him apart? Thank you

Also, a link to the /prog/ thread calling him out
http://dis.4chan.org/read/prog/1232486031/1-40

/sci/ ambassador here.
We have no alliance with /prog/, nor do you have any jurisdiction here. Your trolls are your own problems

>>3
Don't be like that :(

LET ME AT HIM >>3

Here, just plagiarize what this guy said:
http://polymathematics.typepad.com/polymath/2006/06/no_im_sorry_it_.html

Honestly though, who cares? It's close enough. The only thing more purer than a Pure Mathematician is his virginity.

You admit you need a maths genius to shut FrozenVoid up? You /prog/grammers are a bunch of fucking kids. Go back to your toy languages and SICP, you'll never amount to anything more than the code you write.

>>7
You impertinent little shit. Guess who made the browser you just posted with, are the maths software you do your 1+1 bullshit with? That's right, PROGRAMMERS. Guess what egghead, there's more to life than memorizing equations that OTHER people came up with, you low life amphibian shit.

>>8
Do any SKILLED programmers post on /prog/, or are you all just a bunch of ENTERPRISE MONKEYS?

>>8
Seriously, us programmers are required to be flexible, constantly learning new technologies and paradigms. We invent stuff. What do you do? Learn equations and theorems WORTHY mathematicians invented, then drop out and take up Psychology or Political Science. Hahaha, here's a nickel kid (referring to >>7) go tell someone who cares.

Mathematicians are truly the "copy cats" in the world. Think about, what do most maths graduates do? They either:
1) get a PHd and add some tiny, worthless new fact in the giant arena that is knowledge.
2) drop out see >>10
3) become elementary school/high school maths teachers, where they can regurgitate COPIED (STOLEN) information, where students can complete the cycle of doing either 1) 2) or 3)
They contribute NOTHING to the world. They are detached, sociapaths who's only shtick in life is being able to REGURGITATE some worthless, pointless little fact to try and impress people.
Attention:
YOUR PROFESSION IS WORTHLESS.
YOUR DEGREE IS WORTHLESS.
To paraphrase >>7
YOU'LL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING MORE THAN THE THEOREMS YOU MEMORIZE.

>>10
4/10
>>11
0/10

Honestly, gaiz. Most professional mathematicians (not the kind who drop out after they've learned all the maths their weak minds can handle, which incidentally is about the most that your average Ph.D student in CS knows) are quite useful people. And that's only talking about applied mathematics.

Who developed the counting numbers that you monkeys constantly use in your ifs, whiles and fors? Mathematicians. Who set the foundation for physicists to delve deeper into the physical world? You fucking guessed it. What did those physicists do after they took these mathematical tools and started quantizing nature? That's right, they figured out the atomic structure and even how to manipulate it. What else came next? Entire power grids, light bulbs, telephones, radios, you fucking name it. Only after your electrical engineers toyed around did mathematicians realize the potential of this technology to help in their calculations and theorems. Computer "scientists" were soon after a necessity to maintain these newly founded systems, but you know what? All the early computer "scientists" were just mathematicians. They birthed an entire technology. Mathematicians realized their creation had grown so large it needed it's own set of professionals to help sustain it while they fucked off and did obscure shit like write the algorithms you fucks MEMORIZE in your stupid classes.

Face it, you're our janitorial offspring.

Losers.

"6. the division can be converte dto multiplication by inverse of 10 (1/10)
1/10*1/10*1/10*1/10*1/10...
7. the series don't have zero in the multiplication sequence and cannot be equal to zero"

dont bother with him, he's full of shit

NERRRRRRRRRD WARRRRRRRRRRRR! XD

Mathematicians: Discover fundamental facts about the "world" which will be as true in 500 years as they are right now.  The work of Gauss or Jacobi or Abel in the first half of the 19th century are still relevant to work being done today.  How many physicists from that time can you say that about?  Even the mathematicians whose work isn't terribly important has created something truly permanent for the world to remember him by, which is far more than just about anyone else in the world can say.

Programmers: Spend days in a dark room with one hand stuffed in a bag of doritos and one hand on their keyboard, coding greasemonkey scripts that make it slightly more efficient to surf their favorite discussion board and waste even more hours of their lives.  Their work does not create fundamental human truth, it makes pixels on a monitor flicker in a certain pattern.  Their work will be obsolete when the next version of Windows comes out.

I've been both a programmer (professional for 5 years) and a mathematician (currently grad student).  Programming requires skill and a logical, organized mind, but in the end, no significant intelligence or creativity.

Also, this: http://www.xkcd.com/435/

>>12
My question to you is, what have you contributed to this big field of maths? What was the last big contribution from maths which literally changed the way we live? You mathematicians remind me of the 80 year old baseballer, once famous in his day but now too old and decrepit to be doing anything useful. Instead, this old fart likes to remind people of how good he once was, instead of... you know, letting nature take its course and dying.
Face it gramps, you're finished. I would estimate 80% of maths graduates either change majors, or go off to become sales assistants or coal miners.
Face it, you're our janitorial offspring.
I find this statement particularly interesting. Janitorial offspring, how quaint. You know, I couldn't agree more. We run the show now, pops. We create the software for the GPS in your car, the OS and software you use at home.
We quite literally rule the world.

>>14
Blah blah blah. I don't care about what those old farts did 500 years ago. Tell me, what are you contributing to the world right now, with your maths degree? What are you researching? What are you doing with your life?

Ewwwww!! >>16 Just took a shit in >>12 and >>14's mouth!!

>>16
Are you proud of the fact that you'll spend the rest of your life "inventing" software with a finite lifespan? Does making ripples in the sea amuse your small mind? Mathematicians will keep the world running. They'll keep drawing the blueprints, you'll keep building their brainchildren. You would be nothing without the equations and theorems we labor over. Thousands of lines of code? That's nice. Try wading in the waters of creative genius for a change. But you've been glued to your monitor for so long that you've forgotten what it's like to have a true spark of intuition.

>>18
You haven't answered my question. You know it's rude to ignore somebody who asks you a question which you don't answer. I guess that's to be expected from a sociopath math weenie, strung out over sparks over intuition. Groovy man.

>>19
I'm researching non-commutative geometries in string theory. Still reading SICP?

>>20
[quote]string theory[/quote]

BUZZ WORD!

>>21
Interesting how you ignored the 'non-commutative geometries' part.

>>22
i'm not >>19

i was just making note of the use of "string theory" there. i like commutative algebra and algebraic varieties more, but i guess we could get along if we both worked with C* algebras.

>>16
>what are you contributing to the world right now
Absolutely nothing.  The math I do (elliptic curves/modular functions/etc..) has fuck all to do with anything in the real world, except possibly cryptography (but any cryptography based on prime numbers will be worthless once quantum computers are invented anyway).

What I AM doing, though, is contributing (in a tiny way so far) to the expansion of a field of knowledge that contains some of the deepest and most difficult truths discovered in the history of man.

>>16
>>17
obvious samefag

>>20
>Still reading SICP?
>SICP
>CP

:O

NERD FIGHT!

So I'm guessing academic respect is dead now?

>>26
LMAO, programmers aren't "academics".

>>24
What I AM doing, though, is contributing (in a tiny way so far) to the expansion of a field of knowledge that contains some of the deepest and most difficult truths discovered in the history of man.
Translation: I'm sitting up in my ivory tower contributing absolutely nothing tangible to the world

>>28
And proud of it.

Now gtfo and go make some more pixels flicker, codemonkey.

>>24
So what are you doing on 4chan?

Now now there's no need for unpleasentries. I guess we'll all have to agree to disagree. Group hug everyone!

>>31
HUGS TIEM :D

(>^.^)> <(^.^<)

>>30
Wasting my life. >_<

  Maybe all you programmers and math people can clarify something for me. I've been considering majoring in CS, however, the question of it's academic content has bugged me. How much theoretical computer science does the average cs degree entail as opposed to coding?
 
  From a philosophical viewpoint, stuff like questions regarding computability, Church Turing thesis, halting problem, etc. are very cool but how often does this stuff surface as opposed to time spent learning the idiosyncrasies of some language?

>>36
I think it's variable, though a typical cs degree will probably be mostly coding.  Most institutions give you enough flexibility for you to focus on algorithm theory if you're so inclined.

It can be proved for instance, that the best comparison based sorting algorithm is O(N log N).

People are still working out limits of quantum computing, etc.

Stay away from Scheme; it is terrible, except for comic value.

Is it possible to add or subtract an infinite sequence?
Is 0.999... - 0.999... = 0?

>>38

What you wrote isn't an infinite sequence.

You are able to manipulate recurring decimals in the same way as "normal" numbers, ie add, subtract, divide, multiply, exponentiate etc.

It is possible to define addition and subtraction, as well as scalar multiplication of infinite sequences, you get things called an l_p space, depending on what sequences you want, wikipedia it.

>>38

Infinity minus infinity is an indeterminate form. There is no answer to that.