Journal of number theory 11, 209217 1979 simple continued fractions for some irrational numbers jeffrey shallit department of mathematics, princeton university, princeton, new jersey 08540 communicated by k. Proceedings of the roman number theory association volume 2, number 1, march 2017, pages 6181 michel waldschmidt continued fractions. There is another way to represent real numbers called continued fractions. In mathematics, a continued fraction is an expression obtained through an iterative process of representing a number as the sum of its integer part and the reciprocal of another number, then writing this other number as the sum of its integer part and another reciprocal, and so on. But by theorem 1, the value of any continued fraction with a finite number of terms must be rational. Mathematical shorthand notation for simple continued fractions is a list of just the. The book of fractions presents one of the primary concepts of middle and high school mathematics. F or a real number x in the unit interv al, the continued fraction expansion of. Continued fraction, expression of a number as the sum of an integer and a quotient, the denominator of which is the sum of an integer and a quotient, and so on. In the latter case one does to u 2 what had just been done to u 1 above under the assumption u 1 0. This minor excursion from number theory and algebra is a significant advantage to this particular book as it provides a. Simple continued fractions for some irrational numbers.
We start with a simple example, messing with the fraction 61. Simple continued fraction of square root using integer operations only. On the use of continued fractions for stream ciphers. However, not much attention has been given to non simple continued fractions. Continued fractions were studied by the great mathematicians of.
Since then, continued fractions have shown up in a variety of other areas, including, but not limited to. A short proof of the simple continued fraction expansion of. While 1 looks into the option of integer numerator values, we wish to go further. The basic equivalence in this section, weprove the basic equivalence theoremrelating the characteristic series of certain labelled paths in the plane to the universal stieltjesjacobi continued fractions. Fractions and decimals are everywhere you use fractions every day. A variant of the algorithm of simple continued fractions is the following. In general, where a 0, a 1, a 2, and b 0, b 1, b 2, are all integers in a simple continued fraction scf, all the b i are equal to 1 and all the a i are positive integers. Find a simple formula for the generating function of the sequence of numbers. The di erence between simple and non simple continued frac. If after some n the expansion terminates, then the continued fraction is called finite, otherwise it is infinite. One traditional way to write a continued fraction is.
A short proof of the simple continued fraction expansion of authors. The dynamics of continued fractions evan odorney february 16, 2010 notation. Lecture 1 we describe the farey tessellation fand give a very quick introduction to the basic facts we need from hyperbolic geometry, using the upper half plane model. Continued fractions have been studied for over two thousand years, with one of the first recorded studies being that of euclid around 300 bc in his book elements when he used them to find the greatest common divisor of two integers using what is known today as the euclidean algorithm. This is what we will mean when we use the term continued fraction we will often abbreviate it to just cf on this page. For the remainder of the report, every continued fraction discussed is assumed to be simple. A continued fraction is a fraction in which the numerators and denominators may contain continued fractions. The most common type of continued fraction is that of continued fractions for real numbers. You are encouraged to solve this task according to the task description, using any language you may know. This suggests the following procedure for computing convergents for a sufficiently wellbehaved nonsimple continued fraction. However, the same is not true for more general forms of continued fractions.
Then the simple continued fraction has n terms where n is a postive integer. The finite simple continued fraction representation of a real number x has the form. See, for instance, noneuclidean geometry, continued fractions, and ergodic theory. This may seem too simple a solution, far from efficient and not usable at all. The simple continued fraction is an infinite expression obtained by writing a number as a sum of its integer part and the reciprocal of another number and again the sum of an integer of the other number and another reciprocal and so on. Pdf on absolutely normal and continued fraction normal. Although the encryption scheme proposed in this paper is based on a hard mathematical problem, its use is fast. Every rational number has a simple continued fraction expansion which is nite and every nite simple continued fraction expansion is a rational number. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Suppose we start with a rational number, then euclids algorithm terminates in nitely. Basic definitions and facts a continued fraction is given by two sequences of numbers bnn. Continued fractions the continued fraction algorithm let and write with and.
Worksheet number thirteen continued fractions we are all familiar with decimal numbers, and know that a repeating decimal gives a rational number, while one that never repeats and goes on forever represents an irrational number. The general form of a simple continued fraction if the numerators of the fractions are all 1, then the continued fraction is called a simple continued fraction. Here we will assume that all such sums terminate at. It is an expression obtained through the iterative process. For example, they given a way to write a prime congruent to 1 modulo 4 as a sum of two squares. Since the simple classical numbertheoretic continued fractions are the subject of the book, this proof clearly includes all such continued fractions. Continued fractions can contain a finite or infinite number of fractions. The di erence between simple and nonsimple continued frac. More recently, continued fractions have come up in studying the dynamics of flows on translation surfaces a special case of which is studying billiards in a rational polygon. Paths we wish to consider here are positive paths in. Im releasing my code and writeup in 2005 in case they are helpful to anyonesomeone working in this area wrote to me asking for them. An abbreviated way of writing this continued fraction is.
Hot network questions are there languages where a change of character casing can lead to a different meaning of a word. The code should be tested by calculating and printing the square root of 2, napiers constant, and pi, using the following coefficients. Since eulers time, mathematicians such as lambert, gauss, liouville, hurwitz, stieltjes, to mention only a few, established continued fractions as a. Continued fractions offer a means of concrete representation for arbitrary real numbers. The task is to write a program which generates such a number and prints a real representation of it. Exercise on continued fractions jason eisner, spring 1993 this was one of several optional small computational projects assigned to undergraduate mathematics students at cambridge university in 1993. Thus the difference between successive convergents approaches zero and alternates in sign, so a continued fraction always converges to a real number.
Thus, which is a nonintegral continued fraction expansion of. When z is rational, but not an integer, both of these properties can fail. One does not always end up with a simple continued fraction. Every time you use the word half, you are talking about a fraction. Displayed in their full laddered form, they look like. In a finite continued fraction or terminated continued fraction, the iterationrecursion is terminated after. In this talk we introduce continued fractions, prove their basic properties and. However, not much attention has been given to nonsimple continued fractions.
Although we do not limit ourselves to this case in the course, it will be used. Continued fractions, pells equation, and other applications jeremy booher continued fractions usually get shortchanged at promys, but they are interesting in their own right and useful in other areas of number theory. If a 0 is an integer, a i is a positive integer for all, and b i 1 for all, then the continued fraction is called simple, and each a i is called a partial quotient. In general, they are treated computationally as finite sums. Let x be an irrational number, and suppose that its simple continued fraction is finite.
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