Sharpening of theorems of Vahlen and Hurwitz and approximation properties of the Golden ratio (Q494602): Difference between revisions

The author gives the following improvement of the well-known theorem of Hurwitz from Diophantine approximation theory: For every irrational number \(x\), there are infinitely many pairs \((p,q)\in\mathbb{Z}\times\mathbb{Z}\) such that \[ \Biggl| x-{p\over q}\Biggr|\leq {1\over f(q)}, \] where \[ f(q)= {\sqrt{5}q^2\over 2}\,\Biggl(1+ \sqrt{1+{4\over 5q^2}}\Biggr), \] and the function \(f(q)\) cannot be replaced by a function \(g(q)\) such that \(f(q)< g(q)\) for all sufficiently large positive integers \(q\). Moreover, the equality holds if and only if \(x= \varphi+ a\) or \((1+\varphi)^{-1}+ a\) with \(\varphi= (1+\sqrt{5})/2\) (the golden ratio) and \(a\in\mathbb{Z}\). Furthermore, the author proves also two results which improve Vahlen's theorem concerned with the solution of the Diophantine inequality \(|x-p/q|< 1/(2q^2)\).