Although almost all numbers satisfy this property, it has not been proven for any real number not specifically constructed for the purpose. The following numbers whose continued fraction expansions apparently do have this property (based on empirical data) are:
Roots of quadratic equations, e.g. the square roots of integers and the golden ratio (however, the geometric mean of all coefficients for square roots of nonsquare integers from 2 to 24 is about 2.708, suggesting that quadratic roots collectively may give the Khinchin constant as a geometric mean);
where N is an integer, held fixed, and ζ(s, n) is the complex Hurwitz zeta function. Both series are strongly convergent, as ζ(n) − 1 approaches zero quickly for large n. An expansion may also be given in terms of the dilogarithm:
Integrals
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There exist a number of integrals related to Khinchin's constant:[2]
Since the first coefficient a0 of the continued fraction of x plays no role in Khinchin's theorem and since the rational numbers have Lebesgue measure zero, we are reduced to the study of irrational numbers in the unit interval, i.e., those in . These numbers are in bijection with infinite continued fractions of the form [0; a1, a2, ...], which we simply write [a1, a2, ...], where a1, a2, ... are positive integers. Define a transformation T:I → I by
Then μ is a probability measure on the σ-algebra of Borel subsets of I. The measure μ is equivalent to the Lebesgue measure on I, but it has the additional property that the transformation Tpreserves the measure μ. Moreover, it can be proved that T is an ergodic transformation of the measurable spaceI endowed with the probability measure μ (this is the hard part of the proof). The ergodic theorem then says that for any μ-integrable functionf on I, the average value of is the same for almost all :
Applying this to the function defined by f([a1, a2, ...]) = ln(a1), we obtain that
for almost all [a1, a2, ...] in I as n → ∞.
Taking the exponential on both sides, we obtain to the left the geometric mean of the first n coefficients of the continued fraction, and to the right Khinchin's constant.
Generalizations
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The Khinchin constant can be viewed as the first in a series of the Hölder means of the terms of continued fractions. Given an arbitrary series {an}, the Hölder mean of order p of the series is given by
When the {an} are the terms of a continued fraction expansion, the constants are given by
This is obtained by taking the p-th mean in conjunction with the Gauss–Kuzmin distribution. This is finite when .
The arithmetic average diverges: , and so the coefficients grow arbitrarily large: .
The value for K0 is obtained in the limit of p → 0.
Many well known numbers, such as π, the Euler–Mascheroni constant γ, and Khinchin's constant itself, based on numerical evidence,[4][5][2] are thought to be among the numbers for which the limit converges to Khinchin's constant. However, none of these limits have been rigorously established. In fact, it has not been proven for any real number, which was not specifically constructed for that exact purpose.[6]
The algebraic properties of Khinchin's constant itself, e. g. whether it is a rational, algebraicirrational, or transcendental number, are also not known.[2]
^Ryll-Nardzewski, Czesław (1951), "On the ergodic theorems II (Ergodic theory of continued fractions)", Studia Mathematica, 12: 74–79, doi:10.4064/sm-12-1-74-79
^Weisstein, Eric W. "Euler-Mascheroni Constant Continued Fraction". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
^Weisstein, Eric W. "Pi Continued Fraction". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2020-03-23.
^Wieting, Thomas (2008). "A Khinchin Sequence". Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society. 136 (3): 815–824. doi:10.1090/S0002-9939-07-09202-7. ISSN 0002-9939.
David H. Bailey; Jonathan M. Borwein; Richard E. Crandall (1995). "On the Khinchine constant" (PDF). Mathematics of Computation. 66 (217): 417–432. doi:10.1090/s0025-5718-97-00800-4.
Jonathan M. Borwein; David M. Bradley; Richard E. Crandall (2000). "Computational Strategies for the Riemann Zeta Function" (PDF). J. Comput. Appl. Math. 121 (1–2): 11. Bibcode:2000JCoAM.121..247B. doi:10.1016/s0377-0427(00)00336-8.
Thomas Wieting (2007). "A Khinchin Sequence". Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society. 136 (3): 815–824. doi:10.1090/S0002-9939-07-09202-7.
Aleksandr Ya. Khinchin (1997). Continued Fractions. New York: Dover Publications.
External links
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