Rational approximation-analysis of the work of Pekarskij (Q916025)

This is an expository article (talk!) giving an excellent account of the progress made in the field leading to the two papers of \textit{A. A. Pekarskij} [(i) Mat. Sb., Nov. Ser. 124(166), No.4(8), 571-588 (1984; Zbl 0567.41016) and (ii) ibid. 127(16), No.1(5), 3-20 (1985; Zbl 0578.30032)]. The authors' intention in producing this survey is to prepare an introduction to the work of Pekarskij that constitutes a real break-through in the long open problem describing the space of functions admitting a given rate of best rational approximation in the \(L_ p\)- metric. Towards the end the authors briefly review some `post liminary' cases of the main result discussed and indicate some further directions for subsequent work.