Diophantine Approximations

Diophantine Approximations

This self-contained treatment originated as a series of lectures delivered to the Mathematical Association of America. It covers basic results on homogeneous approximation of real numbers; the analogue for complex numbers; basic results for nonhomogeneous approximation in the real case; the analogue for complex numbers; and fundamental properties of the multiples of an irrational number, for both the fractional and integral parts. The author refrains from the use of continuous fractions and includes basic results in the complex case, a feature often neglected in favor of the real number discussion. Each chapter concludes with a bibliographic account of closely related work; these sections also contain the sources from which the proofs are drawn.

Introduction to Diophantine Approximations

The aim of this book is to illustrate by significant special examples three aspects of the theory of Diophantine approximations: the formal relationships that exist between counting processes and the functions entering the theory; the determination of these functions for numbers given as classical numbers; and certain asymptotic estimates holding almost everywhere. Each chapter works out a special case of a much broader general theory, as yet unknown. Indications for this are given throughout the book, together with reference to current publications. The book may be used in a course in number theory, whose students will thus be put in contact with interesting but accessible problems on the ground floor of mathematics.

An Introduction to Diophantine Approximation