This is a guest post by David Benjamin.
Rational numbers, when written in decimal, either have a terminating string of digits, like $\frac{3}{8}=0.375$, or produce an infinite repeating string: one well-known example is $\frac{1}{7}=0.142857142857142857…$, and for a full list of reciprocals and their decimal strings, the Aperiodical’s own Christian Lawson-Perfect has built a website which generates a full list.
I’ve collected some interesting observations about the patterns generated by the cycles of recurring decimals, and in particular several relating to $\frac{1}{7}$.