Related papers: Midy's Theorem for Periodic Decimals
Fractions $\frac{p}{q} \in [0,1)$ with prime denominator $q$ written in decimal have a curious property described by Midy's Theorem, namely that two halves of their period (if it is of even length $2n$) sum up to $10^n-1$. A number of…
Let $b$ be a positive integer greater than 1, $N$ a positive integer relatively prime to $b$, $ |b|_{N}$ the order of $b$ in the multiplicative group $% \mathbb{U}_{N}$ of positive integers less than $N$ and relatively primes to $% N,$ and…
This paper investigates the length of the repeating decimal part when a fraction is expressed in decimal form. First, it provides a detailed explanation of how to calculate the length of the repeating decimal when the denominator of the…
In this note we consider fractions of the form 1/m and their floating-point representation in various arithmetic bases. For instance, what is 1/7 in base 2005? And, what about 1/4? We give a simple algorithm to answer these questions. In…
Let $p>3$ be a prime and $b\ge 2$ an integer such that $p$ does not divide $b$. Then $1/p$ has a periodic digit expansion with respect to the basis $b$. The length $q$ of the period is the (multiplicative) order of $b$ mod $p$. In the case…
In this paper we deal with a classical problem in elementary number theory, namely repeating decimals. We show how the digits of the period of the decimal representation of any fraction $\frac{k}{m}$, where $k$ and $m$ are positive integers…
Let $f(x)$ be a square free quartic polynomial defined over a quadratic field $K$ such that its leading coefficient is a square. If the continued fraction expansion of $\displaystyle \sqrt{f(x)}$ is periodic, then its period $n$ lies in the…
A celebrated result of Morse and Hedlund, stated in 1938, asserts that a sequence $x$ over a finite alphabet is ultimately periodic if and only if, for some $n$, the number of different factors of length $n$ appearing in $x$ is less than…
The classical theory of continued fractions has been widely studied for centuries for its important properties of good approximation, and more recently it has been generalized to $p$-adic numbers where it presents many differences with…
Given a positive rational number $n/d$ with $d$ odd, its odd greedy expansion starts with the largest odd denominator unit fraction at most $n/d$, adds the largest odd denominator unit fraction so the sum is at most $n/d$, and continues as…
It is known that the continued fraction expansion of a real number is periodic if and only if the number is a quadratic irrational. In an attempt to generalize this phenomenon to other settings, Jun-Ichi Tamura and Shin-Ichi Yasutomi have…
We show that for each positive integer $a$ there exist only finitely many prime numbers $p$ such that $a$ appears an odd number of times in the period of continued fraction of $\sqrt{p}$ or $\sqrt{2p}$. We also prove that if $p$ is a prime…
Let $p$ be a prime $\equiv 3$ mod 4, $p>3$, and suppose that 10 has the order $(p-1)/2$ mod p. Then $1/p$ has a decimal period of length $(p-1)/2$. We express the frequency of each digit $0,\ldots,9$ in this period in terms of the class…
If the equation of the title has an integer solution with $k\ge2$, then $m>10^{9.3\cdot10^6}$. This was the current best result and proved using a method due to L. Moser (1953). This approach cannot be improved to reach the benchmark…
The ``comma sequence'' starts with 1 and is defined by the property that if k and k' are consecutive terms, the two-digit number formed from the last digit of k and the first digit of k' is equal to the difference k'-k. If there is more…
For each positive integer n greater than or equal to 2, a new approach to expressing real numbers as sequences of nonnegative integers is given. The n=2 case is equivalent to the standard continued fraction algorithm. For n=3, it reduces to…
By a classical result of Gauss and Kuzmin, the continued fraction expansion of a ``random'' real number contains each digit $a\in\mathbb{N}$ with asymptotic frequency $\log_2(1+1/(a(a+2)))$. We generalize this result in two directions:…
The following magic trick is at the center of this paper. While the audience writes the first ten terms of a Fibonacci-like sequence (the sequence following the same recursion as the Fibonacci sequence), the magician calculates the sum of…
The paper examines the structure of the periodic continued fraction for $\sqrt{d}$ and gives formulae for the central term as well as the repeated partial quotients occurring in its period.
This paper investigates integer multiplication of continued fractions using geometric structures. In particular, this paper shows that integer multiplication of a continued fraction can be represented by replacing one triangulation of an…