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A repeating decimal or recurring decimal is a decimal representation of a number whose digits are eventually periodic (that is, after some place, the same sequence of digits is repeated forever); if this sequence consists only of zeros (that is if there is only a finite number of nonzero digits), the decimal is said to be terminating, and is not considered as repeating.
A conventional way to indicate a repeating decimal is to place a bar (known as a vinculum) over the digits that repeat, for example 0. 789 = 0.789789789... For repeating patterns that begin immediately after the decimal point, the result of the conversion is the fraction with the pattern as a numerator, and the same number of nines as a ...
Every decimal representation of a rational number can be converted to a fraction by converting it into a sum of the integer, non-repeating, and repeating parts and then converting that sum to a single fraction with a common denominator.
In 1802, H. Goodwyn published an observation on the appearance of 9s in the repeating-decimal representations of fractions whose denominators are certain prime numbers. [46] Examples include: = 0. 142857 and 142 + 857 = 999. = 0. 01369863 and 0136 + 9863 = 9999.
A fixed-point representation of a fractional number is essentially an integer that is to be implicitly multiplied by a fixed scaling factor. For example, the value 1.23 can be stored in a variable as the integer value 1230 with implicit scaling factor of 1/1000 (meaning that the last 3 decimal digits are implicitly assumed to be a decimal fraction), and the value 1 230 000 can be represented ...
In mathematics, Midy's theorem, named after French mathematician E. Midy, [1] is a statement about the decimal expansion of fractions a/p where p is a prime and a/p has a repeating decimal expansion with an even period (sequence A028416 in the OEIS). If the period of the decimal representation of a/p is 2n, so that
By considering the complete quotients of periodic continued fractions, Euler was able to prove that if x is a regular periodic continued fraction, then x is a quadratic irrational number. The proof is straightforward. From the fraction itself, one can construct the quadratic equation with integral coefficients that x must satisfy.
Continued fractions can also be applied to problems in number theory, and are especially useful in the study of Diophantine equations. In the late eighteenth century Lagrange used continued fractions to construct the general solution of Pell's equation, thus answering a question that had fascinated mathematicians for more than a thousand years. [9]