0

Suppose we have a sequence ${x_n}$ that converges to some limit, say $\pi$. How do we compute out the decimal expansion of $\pi$ from that sequence? How could the epsilon definition help us here? What are some considerations to have the decimal expansion of the number is not unique?


On existence and Uniqueness of decimal expansion

  • Slightly nervous of downvotes, and I think this is very trivial to see from the definition, but it was not something obvious to me, and let me appreciate a lot more the definition of real number in terms of equivalence class of convergent sequences after thinking of this – Clemens Bartholdy May 05 '24 at 06:02

1 Answers1

0

For the case of real numbers with unique expansions:

It seems so this sort of thing is very easy to answer once we have a real between the epsilon and the sequence index.

Let us recall the definition, if for any $\epsilon >0$, we have an $N$ such that for all $n>N$, we have that $|x_n -L| < \epsilon$.

If we were to put that epsilon is $\frac{1}{10^1}$, then it would mean that would give us an $N$ for which, the sequence terms agree to the limit upto ones place.

And, if we choose it to be $\frac{1}{10^2}$ the terms of the sequence after the index $N$ would be right upto first decimal digit

Similarly, if we choose epsilon to be $\frac{1}{10^{i+1}}$ and find the corresponding $N$ from that we would find all the the numbers which agree to our limit upto $i$ decimal places.


What's interesting is, say we were in another base, say 2 maybe, then we could use similar procedure by considering $\frac{1}{2^i}$

Note: A given real number may have many decimal expansions, but for a given sequence that converges to it, it sho

  • Not sure I am following. If the true number is $.1999999990$, say, then it will be difficult to decide if the first entry is $1$ or $2$. – lulu May 05 '24 at 06:09
  • I think I fixed the problem now @lulu – Clemens Bartholdy May 05 '24 at 06:14
  • @trystwithfreedom I don't think that you have. With lulu's example, even with $\epsilon = \frac{1}{10^7}$ we don't know the value of the first digit. – badjohn May 05 '24 at 16:06