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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 by rational numbers. For this problem, a rational number ''p''/''q'' is a "good" approximation of a real number ''α'' if the absolute value of the difference between ''p''/''q'' and ''α'' may not decrease if ''p''/''q'' is replaced by another rational number with a smaller denominator. This problem was solved during the 18th century by means of simple continued fractions. Knowing the "best" approximations of a given number, the main problem of the field is to find sharp upper and lower bounds of the above difference, expressed as a function of the denominator. It appears that these bounds depend on the nature of the real numbers to be approximated: the lower bound for the approximation of a rational number by another rational number i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Effective Results In Number Theory
For historical reasons and in order to have application to the solution of Diophantine equations, results in number theory have been scrutinised more than in other branches of mathematics to see if their content is effectively computable. Where it is asserted that some list of integers is finite, the question is whether in principle the list could be printed out after a machine computation. Littlewood's result An early example of an ineffective result was J. E. Littlewood's theorem of 1914, that in the prime number theorem the differences of both ψ(''x'') and π(''x'') with their asymptotic estimates change sign infinitely often. In 1933 Stanley Skewes obtained an effective upper bound for the first sign change, now known as Skewes' number. In more detail, writing for a numerical sequence ''f''(''n''), an ''effective'' result about its changing sign infinitely often would be a theorem including, for every value of ''N'', a value ''M'' > ''N'' such that ''f''(''N'') and ''f''('' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Simple Continued Fraction
A simple or regular continued fraction is a continued fraction with numerators all equal one, and denominators built from a sequence \ of integer numbers. The sequence can be finite or infinite, resulting in a finite (or terminated) continued fraction like :a_0 + \cfrac or an infinite continued fraction like :a_0 + \cfrac Typically, such a continued fraction is 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. In the ''finite'' case, the iteration/recursion is stopped after finitely many steps by using an integer in lieu of another continued fraction. In contrast, an ''infinite'' continued fraction is an infinite expression. In either case, all integers in the sequence, other than the first, must be positive. The integers a_i are called the coefficients or terms of the continued fraction. Simple co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Number Theory
Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example, rational numbers), or defined as generalizations of the integers (for example, algebraic integers). Integers can be considered either in themselves or as solutions to equations (Diophantine geometry). Questions in number theory can often be understood through the study of Complex analysis, analytical objects, such as the Riemann zeta function, that encode properties of the integers, primes or other number-theoretic objects in some fashion (analytic number theory). One may also study real numbers in relation to rational numbers, as for instance how irrational numbers can be approximated by fractions (Diophantine approximation). Number theory is one of the oldest branches of mathematics alongside geometry. One quirk of number theory is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Markov Constant
In number theory, specifically in Diophantine approximation theory, the Markov constant M(\alpha) of an irrational number \alpha is the factor for which Dirichlet's approximation theorem can be improved for \alpha. History and motivation Certain numbers can be approximated well by certain rationals; specifically, the convergents of the continued fraction are the best approximations by rational numbers having denominators less than a certain bound. For example, the approximation \pi\approx\frac is the best rational approximation among rational numbers with denominator up to 56. Also, some numbers can be approximated more readily than others. Dirichlet proved in 1840 that the least readily approximable numbers are the rational numbers, in the sense that for every irrational number there exists infinitely many rational numbers approximating it to a certain degree of accuracy that only finitely many such rational approximations exist for rational numbers. Specifically, he prove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Equivalence Class
In mathematics, when the elements of some set S have a notion of equivalence (formalized as an equivalence relation), then one may naturally split the set S into equivalence classes. These equivalence classes are constructed so that elements a and b belong to the same equivalence class if, and only if, they are equivalent. Formally, given a set S and an equivalence relation \sim on S, the of an element a in S is denoted /math> or, equivalently, to emphasize its equivalence relation \sim, and is defined as the set of all elements in S with which a is \sim-related. The definition of equivalence relations implies that the equivalence classes form a partition of S, meaning, that every element of the set belongs to exactly one equivalence class. The set of the equivalence classes is sometimes called the quotient set or the quotient space of S by \sim, and is denoted by S /. When the set S has some structure (such as a group operation or a topology) and the equivalence re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Modular Group
In mathematics, the modular group is the projective special linear group \operatorname(2,\mathbb Z) of 2\times 2 matrices with integer coefficients and determinant 1, such that the matrices A and -A are identified. The modular group acts on the upper-half of the complex plane by linear fractional transformations. The name "modular group" comes from the relation to moduli spaces, and not from modular arithmetic. Definition The modular group is the group of fractional linear transformations of the complex upper half-plane, which have the form :z\mapsto\frac, where a,b,c,d are integers, and ad-bc=1. The group operation is function composition. This group of transformations is isomorphic to the projective special linear group \operatorname(2,\mathbb Z), which is the quotient of the 2-dimensional special linear group \operatorname(2,\mathbb Z) by its center \. In other words, \operatorname(2,\mathbb Z) consists of all matrices :\begin a & b \\ c & d \end where a,b, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Möbius Transformation
In geometry and complex analysis, a Möbius transformation of the complex plane is a rational function of the form f(z) = \frac of one complex number, complex variable ; here the coefficients , , , are complex numbers satisfying . Geometrically, a Möbius transformation can be obtained by first applying the inverse stereographic projection from the plane to the unit sphere, moving and rotating the sphere to a new location and orientation in space, and then applying a stereographic projection to map from the sphere back to the plane. These transformations preserve angles, map every straight line to a line or circle, and map every circle to a line or circle. The Möbius transformations are the projective transformations of the complex projective line. They form a group (mathematics), group called the Möbius group, which is the projective linear group . Together with its subgroups, it has numerous applications in mathematics and physics. Möbius geometry, Möbius geometries and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Émile Borel
Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel (; 7 January 1871 – 3 February 1956) was a French people, French mathematician and politician. As a mathematician, he was known for his founding work in the areas of measure theory and probability. Biography Borel was born in Saint-Affrique, Aveyron, the son of a Protestant pastor. He studied at the Collège Sainte-Barbe and Lycée Louis-le-Grand before applying to both the École normale supérieure (Paris), École normale supérieure and the École Polytechnique. He qualified in the first position for both and chose to attend the former institution in 1889. That year he also won the concours général, an annual national mathematics competition. After graduating in 1892, he placed first in the agrégation, a competitive civil service examination leading to the position of professeur agrégé. His thesis, published in 1893, was titled ''Sur quelques points de la théorie des fonctions'' ("On some points in the theory of functions"). That y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Adolf Hurwitz
Adolf Hurwitz (; 26 March 1859 – 18 November 1919) was a German mathematician who worked on algebra, mathematical analysis, analysis, geometry and number theory. Early life He was born in Hildesheim, then part of the Kingdom of Hanover, to a Jewish family and died in Zürich, in Switzerland. His father Salomon Hurwitz, a merchant, was not wealthy. Hurwitz's mother, Elise Wertheimer, died when he was three years old. Family records indicate that he had siblings and cousins, but their names have yet to be confirmed except for an older brother, Julius, with whom he developed an arithmetical theory for complex continued fractions circa 1890. Hurwitz entered the in Hildesheim in 1868. He was taught mathematics there by Hermann Schubert. Schubert persuaded Hurwitz's father to allow him to attend university, and arranged for Hurwitz to study with Felix Klein at Munich. Salomon Hurwitz could not afford to send his son to university, but his friend, Mr. Edwards, assisted financially. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Dirichlet's Approximation Theorem
In number theory, Dirichlet's theorem on Diophantine approximation, also called Dirichlet's approximation theorem, states that for any real numbers \alpha and N , with 1 \leq N , there exist integers p and q such that 1 \leq q \leq N and : \left , q \alpha -p \right , \leq \frac < \frac. Here represents the of . This is a fundamental result in , showing that any real number has a sequence of good rational approximations: in fact an immediate consequence is that for a given irrational α, the inequality : is satisfied by infinitely many integers ''p'' and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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Baker's Theorem
In transcendental number theory, a mathematical discipline, Baker's theorem gives a lower bound for the absolute value of linear combinations of logarithms of algebraic numbers. Nearly fifteen years earlier, Alexander Gelfond had considered the problem with only integer coefficients to be of "extraordinarily great significance". The result, proved by , subsumed many earlier results in transcendental number theory. Baker used this to prove the transcendence of many numbers, to derive effective bounds for the solutions of some Diophantine equations, and to solve the class number problem of finding all imaginary quadratic fields with class number 1. History To simplify notation, let \mathbb be the set of logarithms to the base ''e'' of nonzero algebraic numbers, that is \mathbb = \left \, where \Complex denotes the set of complex numbers and \overline denotes the algebraic numbers (the algebraic closure of the rational numbers \Q). Using this notation, several results in transcenden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |