Question on recurring decimal digits In my discrete maths class, I have come across an interesting

Brooklynn Hubbard

Brooklynn Hubbard

Answered question

2022-04-10

Question on recurring decimal digits
In my discrete maths class, I have come across an interesting phenomenon for which I can't find an explanation!
If we divide 1 by 13 we obtain 0.07692307
If we divide 3 by 13 we obtain 0.23076923
If we divide 4 by 13 we obtain 0.30769230
As you can see, the digits are recurring in the same order but starting at a different point in the sequence.
Can someone explain this to me? What exactly is happening here?

Answer & Explanation

Eden Bradshaw

Eden Bradshaw

Beginner2022-04-11Added 19 answers

So, let me begin by writing some dull equations:
1 13 = 0.0769230769230
10 13 = 0.769230769230
100 13 = 7.69230769230
1000 13 = 76.9230769230
10000 13 = 769.230769230
100000 13 = 7692.30769230
Of course, a multiple of 10 only moves the sequence about. Imagine, though, that we take the integer component out of each of these equations. When they each start from a separate location and repeat the same pattern, they become instantly interesting:
1 13  0 = 1 13 = 0.0769230769230
10 13  0 = 10 13 = 0.769230769230
100 13  7 = 9 13 = 0.69230769230
1000 13  76 = 12 13 = 0.9230769230
10000 13  769 = 3 13 = 0.230769230
100000 13  7692 = 4 13 = 0.30769230
Hey, those equations are all very cool. They have the same characteristic of having the numbers appear in a shifted order, which isn't very clear if you just write out the fraction without understanding where it comes from.
Notice that this only works for the numerators 1 ,  3 ,  4 ,  9 ,  10 , and 12. The reason these numbers are special is that they are the powers of 10 mod 13. More generally, we could replace 13 by any number n coprime to 10 and say that this is true of the powers of 10 mod n. This is particularly interesting when every integer between 1 and n  1 is a power of 10 mod n, meaning that every non-integer fraction would have this property (which is true of n = 7 and other numbers)

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