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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.
Sometimes an infinite repeating decimal is required to reach the same precision. Thus, it is often useful to convert repeating digits 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 ...
First, every nonzero number with a finite decimal notation (equivalently, endless trailing 0s) has a counterpart with trailing 9s. For example, 0.24999... equals 0.25, exactly as in the special case considered. These numbers are exactly the decimal fractions, and they are dense. [41] [9] Second, a comparable theorem applies in each radix (base).
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.
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.
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 ...
In fact, every real number can be written as the limit of a sequence of rational numbers (e.g. via its decimal expansion, also see completeness of the real numbers). As another example, π is the limit of the sequence (3, 3.1, 3.14, 3.141, 3.1415, ...), which is increasing.
This page was last edited on 7 October 2007, at 09:01 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may ...