Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

All this becomes pretty intuitive if you think about numbers in terms of their decimal expansions. A "random number" is one with a random digit in each of its (infinitely long) list of decimal digits. A rational number is one where, at some finite point, all of the digits start to repeat in some finite pattern. The odds of that happening by chance are zero.

Likewise, if you take any two randomly generated list of decimal digits, at some point there will be a digit in the same place that is different between the two. At that point, you can construct a rational between the two by choosing the smaller digit and then adding "1000....".

But yeah, it's kind of weird.



Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: