You ever see a dog that’s got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it’s never going to make the connection.
Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.
Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?
My “easier” way to think of this one:
1 - 0.999... = 0That is, if you subtract 0.999… from 1, what is the result? It’s an infinitely small value, which can only logically be expressed by 0.
Is it not 0 . …1 ?
That’s exactly what it is–but when the “…” is infinitely long, you never get to the “1”. There is no “1” at all.