Continued fraction From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In mathematics, an infinite continued fraction is an infinite expression obtained through an iterative process of representing a number as the sum of its integer part and the reciprocal of another number, then writing this other number as the sum of its integer part and another reciprocal, and so on. A finite continued fraction is similar, but the iteration/recursion is terminated after finitely many steps by using an integer in lieu of another continued fraction. In either case, all integers in the sequence, other than the first, must be positive.
If arbitrary values and/or functions are used in place of one or more of the numerators or the integers in the denominators, the resulting expression is a generalized continued fraction. When it is necessary to distinguish the first form from generalized continued fractions, the former may be called a simple or regular continued fraction, or said to be in canonical form.

Continued fractions have a number of remarkable properties related to the Euclidean algorithm for integers or real numbers. Every rational number p/q has two closely related expressions as a finite continued fraction, whose coefficients ai can be determined by applying the Euclidean algorithm to (p,q). The numerical value of an infinite continued fraction will be irrational; it is defined from its infinite sequence of integers as the limit of a sequence of values for finite continued fractions. Each finite continued fraction of the sequence is obtained by using a finite prefix of the infinite continued fraction's defining sequence of integers. Moreover, every irrational number α is the value of a unique infinite continued fraction, whose coefficients can be found using the non-terminating version of the Euclidean algorithm applied to the incommensurable values α and 1. This way of expressing real numbers (rational and irrational) is called their continued fraction representation.
The term continued fraction may also refer to representations of rational functions, arising in their analytic theory. For this use of the term see Padé approximation and Chebyshev rational functions.

Source: Wikipedia