continued fraction
Noun
Meaning
a fraction whose numerator is an integer and whose denominator is an integer plus a fraction whose numerator is an integer and whose denominator is an integer plus a fraction and so on
Source: WordNetAlternative names
continued-fraction
Hypernyms
Examples
An infinite continued fraction representation for an irrational number is useful because its initial segments provide rational approximations to the number.
Every irrational number has a unique representation by a continued fraction : where is some integer and all the other numbers are positive integers.
If a short-circuit develops with set to 0, will return +infinity which will give a final of 0, as expected citation (see the continued fraction example of IEEE 754 design rationale for another example).
If the expression contains an infinite number of terms, it is called an infinite continued fraction.
In particular, it must terminate and produce a finite continued fraction representation of the number.
Lochs' theorem states that n th convergent of the continued fraction expansion of almost all real numbers determines the number to an average accuracy of just over n decimal places.