Introducing continued fractions
Consider the quadratic equation
Dividing by we can rewrite it as
Now substitute the expression for given by the right-hand side of this equation for in the
denominator on the right-hand side:
We can continue this incestuous procedure indefinitely, to produce a never-ending staircase of
fractions that is a type-setter’s nightmare:
This staircase is an example of a continued fraction. If we return to equation 1 then we can
simply solve the quadratic equation to find the positive solution for that is given by the
continued fraction expansion of equation 4; it is
Picking , we have generated the continued fraction expansion of the golden mean, :
This form inspires us to define a general continued fraction of a number as
To avoid the cumbersome notation we write an expansion of the form equation 8 as
[ ]
Definition: Any expression of the form
is called a continued fraction, and is written
The sign may be supposed to be attached to the ’s, so any continued fraction may be
expressed in the form
where s and s may be positive and negative numbers. The quantities are
called the elements of and the fraction obtained by stopping at any particular stage is called a
convergent. Thus the first, second, third,…, convergents are
Show that, for the continued fraction
the quantities and are defined by the equations
with the initial values .
Proof: Let denote the convergent of the continued fraction,
So that .
We shall write where .
Observing that may be obtained from by changing into , we have
and so where and .
Proceeding thus we can show that, if and are defined for successive values of by the
equations
then is the th convergent of .
Equations are called the recurrence formulae. It will be found convenient to write
and it will be seen that and , so that equations hold
for .
Converting an ordinary Fraction to a Continued Fraction
Problem: Convert an ordinary fraction to a continued fraction.
Solution:
Consider, the rational number , which is around 4.4624.
So, can be written as
Finally, the fractional part, , is the reciprocal of 7, so its approximation in this scheme, 7, is
exact ( ) and produces the exact expression
for .
The expression is called the continued fraction representation of . This can be
represented by the abbreviated notation = [4; 2, 6, 7].
Converting a Continued Fraction to an ordinary Fraction
Problem: Convert a continued fraction [ ] to an ordinary fraction.
Solution:
[ ]
A continued fraction is an expression of the form
where ai and bi are required to be integers. If bi = 1 for all i the expression is called
a simple continued fraction. If the expression contains a finite number of terms, it is called
a finite continued fraction. If the expression contains an infinite number of terms, it is called
an infinite continued fraction.
Thus, all of the following illustrate valid finite simple continued fractions:
Examples of finite simple continued fractions
Formula Numeric Remarks
2 All integers are a degenerate case
Simplest possible fractional form
First integer may be negative
First integer may be zero
Recurring Continued Fractions:
If , after a certain stage , the elements recur in some order, we have a recurring continued fraction.
The recurring elements form the ' recurring period ' or the cycle , and the non - recurring elements ,
if such exist , form the ' acyclic part of the fraction.
The cycle is usually denoted by putting asterisks under the first and last of the recurring elements,
thus
is denoted by .
Here is the cycle and is the acyclic part.