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The Decimal class in the standard library module decimal has user definable precision and limited mathematical operations (exponentiation, square root, etc. but no trigonometric functions). The Fraction class in the module fractions implements rational numbers. More extensive arbitrary precision floating point arithmetic is available with the ...
The next rational number (ordered by size of denominator) that is a better rational approximation of π is 52 163 / 16 604 , though it is still only correct to six decimal places. To be accurate to seven decimal places, one needs to go as far as 86 953 / 27 678 . For eight, 102 928 / 32 763 is needed. [2]
In order to convert a rational number represented as a fraction into decimal form, one may use long division. For example, consider the rational number 5 / 74 : 0.0 675 74 ) 5.00000 4.44 560 518 420 370 500 etc. Observe that at each step we have a remainder; the successive remainders displayed above are 56, 42, 50.
Not all rational numbers have a finite representation in the decimal notation. For example, the rational number corresponds to 0.333... with an infinite number of 3s. The shortened notation for this type of repeating decimal is 0. 3. [102] Every repeating decimal expresses a rational number. [103]
In mathematics, "rational" is often used as a noun abbreviating "rational number". The adjective rational sometimes means that the coefficients are rational numbers. For example, a rational point is a point with rational coordinates (i.e., a point whose coordinates are rational numbers); a rational matrix is a matrix of rational numbers; a rational polynomial may be a polynomial with rational ...
Also the converse is true: The decimal expansion of a rational number is either finite, or endlessly repeating. Finite decimal representations can also be seen as a special case of infinite repeating decimal representations. For example, 36 ⁄ 25 = 1.44 = 1.4400000...; the endlessly repeated sequence is the one-digit sequence "0".
Long division allows computing the infinite decimal expansion of a rational number. If the rational number is a decimal fraction, the division stops eventually, producing a decimal numeral, which may be prolongated into an infinite expansion by adding infinitely many zeros. If the rational number is not a decimal fraction, the division may ...
The set of rational numbers is not complete. For example, the sequence (1; 1.4; 1.41; 1.414; 1.4142; 1.41421; ...), where each term adds a digit of the decimal expansion of the positive square root of 2, is Cauchy but it does not converge to a rational number (in the real numbers, in contrast, it converges to the positive square root of 2).