On Bloch's constant (Q2565382)

Let \(B\) denote the Bloch constant for the family of normalized \((F'(0)=1)\) holomorphic functions \(F\) defined on the unit disk D. Until recently the largest lower bound on \(B\) was \(B>\sqrt 3/4\) due to Heins in 1962 who had improved the bound of \(B\geq\sqrt 3/4\) due to Ahlfors in 1938. In 1990, Bonk obtained the first numerical improvement of Ahlfors' lower bound; he showed \(B\geq\sqrt 3/4+10^{-14}\). The authors improve this to \(B\geq\sqrt 2/4+10^{-1}\) by making use of Bonk's work and the Schwarz-Pick lemma.