Or, why can't an object be divided into equal thirds?
2006-12-12 16:45:41 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
It's an artifact of our base 10 system. If we were using a base 12 system, for example you could easily divide something into thirds without repeating decimals.
That's why we have things like 12 inches in a foot, 2 x 12 hours in a day, 5 x 12 minutes in an hour, 30 x 12 degrees in a circle, etc. Blame the ancient Babylonians who like things evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. for a base-60 system in lots of our day to day calculations.
2006-12-12 16:52:20 · answer #1 · answered by Puzzling 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
*ALL* whole numbers are actually repeating decimals.
5 can be represented as 5.000000(repeating).
In any case, reality has nothing to do with repeating decimals. The world isn't numerically perfect.
The circumference of a tree is actually a decimal that DOESN'T repeat, and goes on and on and on. That's because the circumference utilizes pi, an IRRATIONAL number.
2006-12-13 00:50:38 · answer #2 · answered by Puggy 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because our universe is INF small and large at the same time. An object can be divided into equal thirds IF you have a really really good cutting tool and know what the smallest unit of mass is and can figure out how to cut it that way. Silly questions :)
2006-12-13 00:52:59 · answer #3 · answered by magpiesmn 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋