Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In the case of irrational numbers, the decimal expansion does not terminate, nor end with a repeating sequence. For example, the decimal representation of π starts with 3.14159, but no finite number of digits can represent π exactly, nor does it repeat. Conversely, a decimal expansion that terminates or repeats must be a rational number.
Some programming languages (or compilers for them) provide a built-in (primitive) or library decimal data type to represent non-repeating decimal fractions like 0.3 and −1.17 without rounding, and to do arithmetic on them. Examples are the decimal.Decimal or num7.Num type of Python, and analogous types provided by other languages.
Also the converse is true: The decimal expansion of a rational number is either finite, or endlessly repeating. Finite decimal representations can also be seen as a special case of infinite repeating decimal representations. For example, 36 ⁄ 25 = 1.44 = 1.4400000...; the endlessly repeated sequence is the one-digit sequence "0".
An irrational number stays aperiodic (with an infinite number of non-repeating digits) in all integral bases. Thus, for example in base 2, π = 3.1415926... 10 can be written as the aperiodic 11.001001000011111... 2. Putting overscores, n, or dots, ṅ, above the common digits is a convention used to represent repeating rational expansions. Thus:
A repeating decimal or recurring decimal is a decimal representation of a number whose digits are eventually periodic (that is, after some place, the same sequence of digits is repeated forever); if this sequence consists only of zeros (that is if there is only a finite number of nonzero digits), the decimal is said to be terminating, and is not considered as repeating.
Rational numbers (): Numbers that can be expressed as a ratio of an integer to a non-zero integer. [3] All integers are rational, but there are rational numbers that are not integers, such as −2/9. Real numbers (): Numbers that correspond to points along a line. They can be positive, negative, or zero.
An informal name for an irrational number that displays such persistent patterns in its decimal expansion, that it has the appearance of a rational number. A schizophrenic number can be obtained as follows. For any positive integer n, let f (n) denote the integer given by the recurrence f (n) = 10 f (n − 1) + n with the initial value f(0
(also written as 0. 9, 0.., or 0.(9)) is a repeating decimal that is an alternative way of writing the number 1. Following the standard rules for representing numbers in decimal notation, its value is the smallest number greater than or equal to every number in the sequence 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, ... .