Abstract
We begin by examining a hitherto unexamined partial manuscript by Ramanujan on the diophantine approximation of e2/a published with his lost notebook. This diophantine approximation is then used to study the problem of how often the partial Taylor series sums of e coincide with the convergents of the (simple) continued fraction of e. We then develop a p-adic analysis of the denominators of the convergents of e and prove a conjecture of J. Sondow that there are only two instances when the convergents of the continued fraction of e coalesce with partial sums of e. We conclude with open questions about the zeros of certain p-adic functions naturally occurring in our proofs.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1298-1331 |
Number of pages | 34 |
Journal | Advances in Mathematics |
Volume | 248 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 25 2013 |
Keywords
- Approximation by partial sums of power series
- Continued fractions
- Diophantine approximation
- Exponential function
- P-Adic analysis
- Primary
- Secondary
- Sondow's Conjecture
- Supercongruences
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Mathematics