Engel expansion 1 Engel expansion

The Engel expansion of a positive x is the unique non-decreasing sequence of positive integers such that

Rational numbers have a finite Engel expansion, while irrational numbers have an infinite Engel expansion. If x is rational, its Engel expansion provides a representation of x as an . Engel expansions are named after Friedrich Engel, who studied them in 1913. An expansion analogous to an Engel expansion, in which alternating terms are negative, is called a Pierce expansion.

Engel expansions, continued fractions, and Kraaikamp and Wu (2004) observe that an Engel expansion can also be written as an ascending variant of a :

They claim that ascending continued fractions such as this have been studied as early as Fibonacci's (1202). This claim appears to refer to Fibonacci's compound fraction notation in which a sequence of numerators and denominators sharing the same fraction bar represents an ascending continued fraction:

If such a notation has all numerators 0 or 1, as occurs in several instances in Liber Abaci, the result is an Engel expansion. However, Engel expansion as a general technique does not seem to be described by Fibonacci.

Algorithm for computing Engel expansions To find the Engel expansion of x, let

and

where is the ceiling function (the smallest integer not less than r). If for any i, halt the algorithm. Engel expansion 2

Example To find the Engel expansion of 1.175, we perform the following steps.

The ends here. Thus,

and the Engel expansion of 1.175 is {1, 6, 20}.

Engel expansions of rational numbers Every positive has a unique finite Engel expansion. In the algorithm for Engel expansion, if u is a i rational number x/y, then u = ( y mod x)/y. Therefore, at each step, the numerator in the remaining fraction u i+1 − i decreases and the process of constructing the Engel expansion must terminate in a finite number of steps. Every rational number also has a unique infinite Engel expansion: using the identity

the final digit n in a finite Engel expansion can be replaced by an infinite sequence of (n + 1)s without changing its value. For example

This is analogous to the fact that any rational number with a finite decimal representation also has an infinite decimal representation (see 0.999...). Erdős, Rényi, and Szüsz asked for nontrivial bounds on the length of the finite Engel expansion of a rational number x/y; this question was answered by Erdős and Shallit, who proved that the number of terms in the expansion is O(y1/3 + ε) for any ε > 0.[1]

Engel expansions for some well-known constants (sequence A006784 in OEIS) (sequence A000027 in OEIS) And in general,

(sequence A028254 in OEIS)

In general, an Engel expansion with constant terms is a geometric series. More Engel expansions for constants can be found here [2]. Engel expansion 3

Growth rate of the expansion terms The coefficients a of the Engel expansion typically exhibit exponential growth; more precisely, for almost all i numbers in the interval (0,1], the limit exists and is equal to e. However, the subset of the interval for which this is not the case is still large enough that its Hausdorff dimension is one.[3] The same typical growth rate applies to the terms in expansion generated by the greedy algorithm for Egyptian fractions. However, the set of real numbers in the interval (0,1] whose Engel expansions coincide with their greedy expansions has measure zero, and Hausdorff dimension 1/2.[4]

Notes

[1] Erdős, Rényi & Szüsz (1958); Erdős & Shallit (1991).

[2] http:/ / oeis. org/ wiki/ Index_to_OEIS:_Section_El#Engel [3] Wu (2000). Wu credits the result that the limit is almost always e to Janos Galambos. [4][4]Wu (2003).

References • Engel, F. (1913), "Entwicklung der Zahlen nach Stammbruechen", Verhandlungen der 52. Versammlung deutscher Philologen und Schulmaenner in Marburg, pp. 190–191. • Pierce, T. A. (1929). "On an algorithm and its use in approximating roots of algebraic equations". Am. Math. Monthly 36 (10): 523-525. JSTOR 2299963.

• Erdős, Paul; Rényi, Alfréd; Szüsz, Peter (1958), "On Engel's and Sylvester's series" (http:/ / www. renyi. hu/

~p_erdos/ 1958-07. pdf), Ann. Univ. Sci. Budapest. Eötvös Sect. Math. 1: 7–32.

• Erdős, Paul; Shallit, Jeffrey (1991), "New bounds on the length of finite Pierce and Engel series" (http:/ / jtnb.

cedram. org/ item?id=JTNB_1991__3_1_43_0), Journal de théorie des nombres de Bordeaux 3 (1): 43–53, doi:10.5802/jtnb.41, MR1116100. • Paradis, J.; Viader, P.; Bibiloni, L. (1998). "Approximation to quadratic irrationals and their Pierce expansions"

(http:/ / www. fq. math. ca/ 36-2. html). Fib. Quart. 36 (2): 146-153. • Kraaikamp, Cor; Wu, Jun (2004), "On a new continued fraction expansion with non-decreasing partial quotients", Monatshefte für Mathematik 143 (4): 285–298, doi:10.1007/s00605-004-0246-3. • Wu, Jun (2000). "A problem of Galambos on Engel expansions". Acta Arithmetica 92 (4): 383–386. MR1760244.. • Wu, Jun (2003), "How many points have the same Engel and Sylvester expansions?", Journal of Number Theory 103 (1): 16–26, doi:10.1016/S0022-314X(03)00017-9, MR2008063.

External links

• Weisstein, Eric W. "Engel Expansion" (http:/ / mathworld. wolfram. com/ EngelExpansion. html). MathWorld–A Wolfram Web Resource. Article Sources and Contributors 4 Article Sources and Contributors

Engel expansion Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=526024438 Contributors: Almit39, Burn, Charles Matthews, David Eppstein, Gandalf61, Giftlite, Hair Commodore, Headbomb, Herbee, Kilom691, Kuroshscyhtia, Michael Hardy, Reyk, WheezyGonzalez, XJamRastafire, Zunaid, 4 anonymous edits

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