English

Pell's equation without irrational numbers

Number Theory 2010-03-24 v2

Abstract

We solve Pell's equation in a simple way without continued fractions or irrational numbers, and relate the algorithm to the Stern Brocot tree.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0806.2490,
  title  = {Pell's equation without irrational numbers},
  author = {N. J. Wildberger},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0806.2490},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

10 pages, 3 figures added some references, fixed typos, added remarks on Speeding up the algorithm

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:50:50.616Z