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In Ancient Rome, long before the existence of the decimal system, computations were often made in fractions in the multiples of 1 / 100 . For example, Augustus levied a tax of 1 / 100 on goods sold at auction known as centesima rerum venalium. Computation with these fractions was equivalent to computing percentages.
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.
For example, the constant π may be defined as the ratio of the length of a circle's circumference to its diameter. The following list includes a decimal expansion and set containing each number, ordered by year of discovery. The column headings may be clicked to sort the table alphabetically, by decimal value, or by set.
For example, we might want to calculate the relative change of −10 to −6. The above formula gives (−6) − (−10) / −10 = 4 / −10 = −0.4, indicating a decrease, yet in fact the reading increased. Measures of relative change are unitless numbers expressed as a fraction. Corresponding values of percent change would be ...
Thus, the probability that a number starts with the digits 3, 1, 4 (some examples are 3.14, 3.142, π, 314280.7, and 0.00314005) is log 10 (1 + 1/314) ≈ 0.00138, as in the box with the log-log graph on the right. This result can be used to find the probability that a particular digit occurs at a given position within a number.
An example of a fraction that cannot be represented by a decimal expression (with a finite number of digits) is 1 / 3 , 3 not being a power of 10. More generally, a decimal with n digits after the separator (a point or comma) represents the fraction with denominator 10 n , whose numerator is the integer obtained by removing the separator.
In mathematics real is used as an adjective, meaning that the underlying field is the field of the real numbers (or the real field). For example, real matrix, real polynomial and real Lie algebra. The word is also used as a noun, meaning a real number (as in "the set of all reals").
For example, with an annual growth rate of 4.8% the doubling time is 14.78 years, and a doubling time of 10 years corresponds to a growth rate between 7% and 7.5% (actually about 7.18%). When applied to the constant growth in consumption of a resource, the total amount consumed in one doubling period equals the total amount consumed in all ...