Historical Development and Applications of Continued Fractions

Presenter Information

Nan Zheng, Minnesota State University - Mankato

Location

CSU 204

Start Date

21-4-2014 2:10 PM

End Date

21-4-2014 3:10 PM

Student's Major

Mathematics and Statistics

Student's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Mentor's Name

Namyong Lee

Mentor's Email Address

namyong.lee@mnsu.edu

Mentor's Department

Mathematics and Statistics

Mentor's College

Science, Engineering and Technology

Description

Continued Fraction is origin back about two thousand years ago, but it was officially named in 1695, by John Wallis. During the seventeenth centuries, Continued Fraction were studied by many great mathematicians. It has been used in many different mathematical fields, such as, number theory, series and recursion, approximation theory, and theory of probability, to name a few. Even though Continued Fraction is not covered in typical undergraduate curriculum in mathematics, it has many fascinating properties and it has wonderful series of applications. In this research, we surveyed the topic through many different classic literature. Especially we have focused some applications of Continued Fractions, including the modern calendar system, some mechanical design, and solving the Diophantine equations.