Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Sometimes an infinite repeating decimal is required to reach the same precision. Thus, it is often useful to convert repeating decimals into fractions. 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 ...
(also written as 0. 9, 0.., or 0.(9)) is a repeating decimal that is an alternate way of writing the number 1. Following the standard rules for representing numbers in decimal notation, its value is the smallest number greater than or equal to every number in the sequence 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, .... It can be proved that this number is 1; that is,
Cyclic numbers are related to the recurring digital representations of unit fractions. A cyclic number of length L is the digital representation of 1/(L + 1). Conversely, if the digital period of 1/p (where p is prime) is p − 1, then the digits represent a cyclic number. For example: 1/7 = 0.142857 142857...
meaning to add b and c first and then subtract the result from a, which would be written more commonly today as a − (b + c). Parentheses, used for grouping, are only rarely found in the mathematical literature before the eighteenth century. The vinculum was used extensively, usually as an overline, but Chuquet in 1484 used the underline ...
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.
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 .