Complex continued fractions: early work of the brothers Adolf and Julius Hurwitz (Q461375): Difference between revisions

The first part of this article is dedicated to the lives of the brothers Adolf and Julius Hurwitz; the second part discusses their contributions to the theory of continued fractions over the ring of Gaussian integers and briefly presents the subsequent work on this topic until today. The fairly complete list of references may be supplemented by a few items. \textit{Hermann Scheffler}'s little-known book \glqq Die unbestimmte Analytik\grqq{} [Hannover: Helwing 682 p. (available via google books); reprint 2018, FB\&C Limited], which was published already in 1854, contains a theory of continued fractions in the ring of Gaussian integers. Scheffler applies the results to the Pell equation and to the reduction of binary quadratic forms with complex coefficients. \textit{R. B. Lakein}, in a series of articles [Zbl 0221.12009; Zbl 0278.10031; Zbl 0298.10020; Zbl 0307.10033; Zbl 0321.12010; Zbl 0328.10026] studied complex continued fractions and used them for computing units and the class numbers of certain complex quartic fields. The computation of units was also the motivation for the investigations of complex continued fractions by \textit{W. Trinks} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 299/300, 125--137 (1978; Zbl 0367.12001)] and \textit{B. Degel} [Arch. Math. 48, 232--240 (1987; Zbl 0631.12002)].