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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 ...
Such a number is algebraic and can be expressed as the sum of a rational number and the square root of a rational number. Constructible number: A number representing a length that can be constructed using a compass and straightedge. Constructible numbers form a subfield of the field of algebraic numbers, and include the quadratic surds.
A rational number is a number that can be expressed as a fraction with an integer numerator and a positive integer denominator. Negative denominators are allowed, but are commonly avoided, as every rational number is equal to a fraction with positive denominator.
An algebraic number is a number that is a root of a non-zero polynomial in one variable with integer (or, equivalently, rational) coefficients. For example, the golden ratio , ( 1 + 5 ) / 2 {\displaystyle (1+{\sqrt {5}})/2} , is an algebraic number, because it is a root of the polynomial x 2 − x − 1 .
Rational number arithmetic is the branch of arithmetic that deals with the manipulation of numbers that can be expressed as a ratio of two integers. [93] Most arithmetic operations on rational numbers can be calculated by performing a series of integer arithmetic operations on the numerators and the denominators of the involved numbers.
Number theory began with the manipulation of numbers, that is, natural numbers (), and later expanded to integers and rational numbers (). Number theory was once called arithmetic, but nowadays this term is mostly used for numerical calculations. [15]
In mathematics a rational number is a number that can be represented by a fraction of the form a / b , where a and b are integers and b is not zero; the set of all rational numbers is commonly represented by the symbol Q or , which stands for quotient.
The essential idea is that we use a set , which is the set of all rational numbers whose squares are less than 2, to "represent" number , and further, by defining properly arithmetic operators over these sets (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), these sets (together with these arithmetic operations) form the familiar real numbers.