is clearly less than a third, one can be
sure, without difficult calculations, that 
is a
very small number, having hundreds of leading zeros after the decimal point.
.
Because is clearly less than a third, one can be
sure, without difficult calculations, that is a
very small number, having hundreds of leading zeros after the decimal point.
On the other hand, 
is easily found to be a whole
number: the even positions in the binomial expansion of both sides are whole
numbers, while the odd positions cancel each other.
The value of 
is therefore only a very small number
shy of a whole number. Its 48th digit after the decimal point is therefore '9',
as are all other of the first 900 digits and more after the decimal point.
I first encountered this riddle following its publication here, but this is not its earliest source. A more complex version appears in question 5 of The 29th Annual Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Contest, and it has surely been making the rounds even before that.