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The number π (/ p aɪ / ⓘ; spelled out as "pi") is a mathematical constant, approximately equal to 3.14159, that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.It appears in many formulae across mathematics and physics, and some of these formulae are commonly used for defining π, to avoid relying on the definition of the length of a curve.
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.
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.
S n is the approximation after taking n terms. Each subsequent subplot magnifies the shaded area horizontally by 10 times. (click for detail) He used the first 21 terms to compute an approximation of π correct to 11 decimal places as 3.141 592 653 59. He also improved the formula based on arctan(1) by including a correction:
A mathematical symbol is a figure or a combination of figures that is used to represent a mathematical object, an action on mathematical objects, a relation between mathematical objects, or for structuring the other symbols that occur in a formula.
Another meaning for generalized continued fraction is a generalization to higher dimensions. For example, there is a close relationship between the simple continued fraction in canonical form for the irrational real number α, and the way lattice points in two dimensions lie to either side of the line y = αx. Generalizing this idea, one might ...
Apéry's constant arises naturally in a number of physical problems, including in the second- and third-order terms of the electron's gyromagnetic ratio, computed using quantum electrodynamics. [ 9 ] ζ ( 3 ) {\displaystyle \zeta (3)} is known to be an irrational number which was proven by the French mathematician Roger Apéry in 1979.
Conversely, a decimal expansion that terminates or repeats must be a rational number. These are provable properties of rational numbers and positional number systems and are not used as definitions in mathematics. Irrational numbers can also be expressed as non-terminating continued fractions (which in some cases are periodic), and in many ...