Continued fractions with bounded even-order partial quotients (Q6073929)

The authors study real numbers for which the even-order partial quotients in the regular continued fraction form a bounded sequence. Such a number \(x\) is badly approximated by rationals smaller than \(x\), but can be approximable to any order from above. The authors first show that any real number can be expressed as the sum of two numbers for which the even-order partial quotients is equal to \(1\). They also prove the same result for products of two such numbers. In both cases, an algorithm is given to find the continued fraction of the two summands resp. factors. Subsequently, the authors obtain bounds on the Hausdorff dimension of sets of numbers for which the even-order partial quotients are restricted to some explicit finite set. Several such bounds are calculated. As an example, the set of numbers for which the even-order partial quotients is equal to \(1\) is shown to lie between \(0.732\) and \(0.819\).