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Generalized Continued Fraction
A continued fraction is a mathematical expression that can be written as a fraction with a denominator that is a sum that contains another simple or continued fraction. Depending on whether this iteration terminates with a simple fraction or not, the continued fraction is finite or infinite. Different fields of mathematics have different terminology and notation for continued fraction. In number theory the standard unqualified use of the term continued fraction refers to the special case where all numerators are 1, and is treated in the article simple continued fraction. The present article treats the case where numerators and denominators are sequences \,\ of constants or functions. From the perspective of number theory, these are called generalized continued fraction. From the perspective of complex analysis or numerical analysis, however, they are just standard, and in the present article they will simply be called "continued fraction". Formulation A continued fraction is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Expression (mathematics)
In mathematics, an expression is a written arrangement of symbol (mathematics), symbols following the context-dependent, syntax (logic), syntactic conventions of mathematical notation. Symbols can denote numbers, variable (mathematics), variables, operation (mathematics), operations, and function (mathematics), functions. Other symbols include punctuation marks and bracket (mathematics), brackets, used for Symbols of grouping, grouping where there is not a well-defined order of operations. Expressions are commonly distinguished from ''mathematical formula, formulas'': expressions are a kind of mathematical object, whereas formulas are statements ''about'' mathematical objects. This is analogous to natural language, where a noun phrase refers to an object, and a whole Sentence (linguistics), sentence refers to a fact. For example, 8x-5 is an expression, while the Inequality (mathematics), inequality 8x-5 \geq 3 is a formula. To ''evaluate'' an expression means to find a numeric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pietro Cataldi
Pietro Antonio Cataldi (15 April 1548, Bologna – 11 February 1626, Bologna) was an Italian mathematician. A citizen of Bologna, he taught mathematics and astronomy and also worked on military problems. His work included the development of simple continued fractions and a method for their representation. He was one of many mathematicians who attempted to prove Euclid's fifth postulate. Cataldi discovered the sixth and seventh perfect numbers by 1588.Caldwell, Chris''The largest known prime by year'' His discovery of the 6th, that corresponding to p=17 in the formula Mp=2p-1, exploded a many-times repeated number-theoretical myth that the perfect numbers had units digits that invariably alternated between 6 and 8. (Until Cataldi, 19 authors going back to Nicomachus are reported to have made the claim, with a few more repeating this afterward, according to L.E.Dickson's '' History of the Theory of Numbers''). Cataldi's discovery of the 7th (for p=19) held the record for the lar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Louis Lagrange
Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi LagrangiaJoseph-Louis Lagrange, comte de l’Empire ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' or Giuseppe Ludovico De la Grange Tournier; 25 January 1736 – 10 April 1813), also reported as Giuseppe Luigi Lagrange or Lagrangia, was an Italian and naturalized French , physicist and astronomer. He made significa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diophantine Equation
''Diophantine'' means pertaining to the ancient Greek mathematician Diophantus. A number of concepts bear this name: *Diophantine approximation In number theory, the study of Diophantine approximation deals with the approximation of real numbers by rational numbers. It is named after Diophantus of Alexandria. The first problem was to know how well a real number can be approximated ... * Diophantine equation * Diophantine quintuple * Diophantine set {{disambig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proof That π Is Irrational
In the 1760s, Johann Heinrich Lambert was the first to prove that the number is irrational, meaning it cannot be expressed as a fraction a/b, where a and b are both integers. In the 19th century, Charles Hermite found a proof that requires no prerequisite knowledge beyond basic calculus. Three simplifications of Hermite's proof are due to Mary Cartwright, Ivan Niven, and Nicolas Bourbaki. Another proof, which is a simplification of Lambert's proof, is due to Miklós Laczkovich. Many of these are proofs by contradiction. In 1882, Ferdinand von Lindemann proved that \pi is not just irrational, but transcendental as well. Lambert's proof In 1761, Johann Heinrich Lambert proved that \pi is irrational by first showing that this continued fraction expansion holds: :\tan(x) = \cfrac. Then Lambert proved that if x is non-zero and rational, then this expression must be irrational. Since \tan\tfrac\pi4 =1, it follows that \tfrac\pi4 is irrational, and thus \pi is also irrational. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Heinrich Lambert
Johann Heinrich Lambert (; ; 26 or 28 August 1728 – 25 September 1777) was a polymath from the Republic of Mulhouse, at that time allied to the Switzerland, Swiss Confederacy, who made important contributions to the subjects of mathematics, physics (particularly optics), philosophy, astronomy and map projections. Biography Lambert was born in 1728 into a Huguenot family in the city of Mulhouse, nowadays in Alsace, France, at that time a city-state allied to the Swiss Confederacy. Some sources give 26 August as his birth date and others 28 August. Leaving school at 12, he continued to study in his free time while undertaking a series of jobs. These included assistant to his father (a tailor), a clerk at a nearby iron works, a private tutor, secretary to the editor of ''Basler Zeitung'' and, at the age of 20, private tutor to the sons of Count Salis in Chur. Travelling Europe with his charges (1756–1758) allowed him to meet established mathematicians in the German states, Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convergence Problem
In the analytic theory of continued fractions, the convergence problem is the determination of conditions on the partial numerators ''a''''i'' and partial denominators ''b''''i'' that are sufficient to guarantee the convergence of the infinite continued fraction : x = b_0 + \cfrac.\, This convergence problem is inherently more difficult than the corresponding problem for infinite series. Elementary results When the elements of an infinite continued fraction consist entirely of positive real numbers, the determinant formula can easily be applied to demonstrate when the continued fraction converges. Since the denominators ''B''''n'' cannot be zero in this simple case, the problem boils down to showing that the product of successive denominators ''B''''n''''B''''n''+1 grows more quickly than the product of the partial numerators ''a''1''a''2''a''3...''a''''n''+1. The convergence problem is much more difficult when the elements of the continued fraction are complex numbers. Per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euler's Continued Fraction Formula
In the analytic theory of continued fractions, Euler's continued fraction formula is an identity connecting a certain very general infinite series with an infinite continued fraction. First published in 1748, it was at first regarded as a simple identity connecting a finite sum with a finite continued fraction in such a way that the extension to the infinite case was immediately apparent. Today it is more fully appreciated as a useful tool in analytic attacks on the general convergence problem for infinite continued fractions with complex elements. The original formula Euler derived the formula as connecting a finite sum of products with a finite continued fraction. : \begin a_0\left(1 + a_1\left(1 + a_2\left(\cdots + a_n\right)\cdots\right)\right) & = a_0 + a_0a_1 + a_0a_1a_2 + \cdots + a_0a_1a_2\cdots a_n \\ & = \cfrac\, \end The identity is easily established by induction on ''n'', and is therefore applicable in the limit: if the expression on the left is extended to rep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Infinite Series
In mathematics, a series is, roughly speaking, an addition of infinitely many terms, one after the other. The study of series is a major part of calculus and its generalization, mathematical analysis. Series are used in most areas of mathematics, even for studying finite structures in combinatorics through generating functions. The mathematical properties of infinite series make them widely applicable in other quantitative disciplines such as physics, computer science, statistics and finance. Among the Ancient Greeks, the idea that a potentially infinite summation could produce a finite result was considered paradoxical, most famously in Zeno's paradoxes. Nonetheless, infinite series were applied practically by Ancient Greek mathematicians including Archimedes, for instance in the quadrature of the parabola. The mathematical side of Zeno's paradoxes was resolved using the concept of a limit during the 17th century, especially through the early calculus of Isaac Newton. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leonhard Euler
Leonhard Euler ( ; ; ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss polymath who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer, and engineer. He founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made influential discoveries in many other branches of mathematics, such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and infinitesimal calculus. He also introduced much of modern mathematical terminology and Mathematical notation, notation, including the notion of a mathematical function. He is known for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, astronomy, and music theory. Euler has been called a "universal genius" who "was fully equipped with almost unlimited powers of imagination, intellectual gifts and extraordinary memory". He spent most of his adult life in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, then the capital of Kingdom of Prussia, Prussia. Euler is credited for popularizing the Greek letter \pi (lowercase Pi (letter), pi) to denote Pi, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calculus
Calculus is the mathematics, mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", it has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus. The former concerns instantaneous Rate of change (mathematics), rates of change, and the slopes of curves, while the latter concerns accumulation of quantities, and areas under or between curves. These two branches are related to each other by the fundamental theorem of calculus. They make use of the fundamental notions of convergence (mathematics), convergence of infinite sequences and Series (mathematics), infinite series to a well-defined limit (mathematics), limit. It is the "mathematical backbone" for dealing with problems where variables change with time or another reference variable. Infinitesimal calculus was formulated separately ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many other branches of mathematics, such as binary arithmetic and statistics. Leibniz has been called the "last universal genius" due to his vast expertise across fields, which became a rarity after his lifetime with the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the spread of specialized labor. He is a prominent figure in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote works on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history, philology, games, music, and other studies. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. Leibniz contributed to the field ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
