Generalized expansions of real numbers
by Simon Plouffe
First Draft, April 2006 Revised August 28, 2014
Abstract
I present here a collection of algorithms that permits the expansion into a finite series or sequence from a real number ∈ , the precision used is 64 decimal digits. The collection of mathematical constants was taken from my own collection and theses sources [1]‐[6][9][10]. The goal of this experiment is to find a closed form of the sequence generated by the algorithm. Some new results are presented.
‐Introduction ‐Algorithms ‐Results ‐Appendix
‐Introduction
Most of the algorithms will produce a sequence of integers when ∈ and can be written as a 2 terms recurrence. If is the initial value then will be the terms of the sequence. If is rational then most of the algorithms will lead to a finite sequence. But with 64 decimal digits enough terms are computed for detecting simple patterns as with some quadratic irrational like √2 or the Golden Ration. Other numbers like , : 2.71828… do have a pattern which is easily recognizable but most real numbers do not. The goal of this computation of sequences from real numbers using different algorithms is to discover or find if there could be any patterns at all with other algorithms. The natural question that comes to mind is: is there any closed formula or generating function for those sequences? For this I can use Gfun package of Maple or with Mathematica as well to answer the question. Gfun was developed starting in 1991 by me and François Bergeron, see [7]. A known example is 1 1.175201193643801456 …which leads to: 1, 6, 20, 42, 72, 110, 156, 210, 272, 342, … when expanded into the Engel expansion. That sequence appears to be the coefficients of the series expansion of this rational polynomial:
1 3 5 1
1 6 20 42 72 110 156 210 ⋯
So the coefficients are given by the polynomial: 4 2 , 1 by using Montmort formula. Unfortunately this is a lucky example because for tanh 1 = 0.761… with the Engel expansion we get: 2, 2, 22, 50, 70, 29091, 49606, 174594, 260086, … which does not correspond to any known closed formula where the continued fraction expansion of that same numbers is: 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, …. ‐Algorithms
All algorithms begin with and the sequence is given by the .