eli5 Is there a reason that the decimals of pi go on forever (or at least appear to)? Or do it just be like that?

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Edit: Thanks for the answers everyone! From what I can gather, pi just do be like that, and other irrational numbers be like that too.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I see a lot of answers explaining that pi is irrational, but not many answers for WHY that means the decimals go on forever. I’ll try my best here:

In a decimal like 3.1415… we have 3 + 1/10 + 4/100 +…. We KNOW pi is irrational, and you can do some research into that later if you’re curious why. That means that it can’t be written as a fraction of two whole numbers. If there was some end to the digits, then you could simply do all that fraction addition and, while it would be a pain to do, you would end up with a fraction of two whole numbers, making it a rational number. (E.g. 3.14=3+1/10+4/100=314/100)

That’s the contradiction. If the digits ever stopped, then pi is rational. We know pi is irrational, so the digits can never stop. (You can also look into the logic in that last step if you’re curious! A lot of math can be pretty simple, the notation can just seem scary because mathematicians like to be precise)

TLDR: if the decimals stop then pi would be rational, which it’s not.

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