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In the 1760s, Johann Heinrich Lambert was the first to prove that the number π is irrational, meaning it cannot be expressed as a fraction /, where and are both integers. In the 19th century, Charles Hermite found a proof that requires no prerequisite knowledge beyond basic calculus .
Fractions such as 22 / 7 and 355 / 113 are commonly used to approximate π, but no common fraction (ratio of whole numbers) can be its exact value. [21] Because π is irrational, it has an infinite number of digits in its decimal representation, and does not settle into an infinitely repeating pattern of digits.
The real number x is a rational number only if its decimal expansion is eventually periodic, that is if there are natural numbers N and p such that for every n ≥ N it is the case that a n+p = a n. Another way of expressing numbers is to write them as simple continued fractions , as in:
Hence, the set of real numbers consists of non-overlapping sets of rational, algebraic irrational, and transcendental real numbers. [3] For example, the square root of 2 is an irrational number, but it is not a transcendental number as it is a root of the polynomial equation x 2 − 2 = 0. The golden ratio (denoted or ) is another irrational ...
Proofs of the mathematical result that the rational number 22 / 7 is greater than π (pi) date back to antiquity. One of these proofs, more recently developed but requiring only elementary techniques from calculus, has attracted attention in modern mathematics due to its mathematical elegance and its connections to the theory of Diophantine approximations.
A stronger result is the following: [31] Every rational number in the interval ((/) /,) can be written either as a a for some irrational number a or as n n for some natural number n. Similarly, [ 31 ] every positive rational number can be written either as a a a {\displaystyle a^{a^{a}}} for some irrational number a or as n n n {\displaystyle n ...
Goldbach’s Conjecture. One of the greatest unsolved mysteries in math is also very easy to write. Goldbach’s Conjecture is, “Every even number (greater than two) is the sum of two primes ...
The following list includes the continued fractions of some constants and is sorted by their representations. Continued fractions with more than 20 known terms have been truncated, with an ellipsis to show that they continue. Rational numbers have two continued fractions; the version in this list is the shorter one.