One of our Dads is a bit of a number cruncher and tends to think outside the box. He mentioned something to us that we couldn’t dismiss. He said 1 does not equal 1.

He explained that when using fractions, 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1 and that made sense to us. Then he asked us to think about the same equation in decimals, 1/3 = 0.33333…to infinity. So we took .33333… + .33333… + .33333… and we got .99999….to infinity. This equation never actually makes it to a solid 1, so in this instance, 1 does not equal 1, which goes against our understanding of basic math.

However little the difference is, there is still a missing piece in our day to day math and we would love to know what that missing piece is or what it means. If there is anyone in the mathematics community that can explain this phenomenon or solve the mystery, please feel free to contact us with your thoughts.