Vallée Constant
The Vallée constant is the limit, as
, of the nth roots
of the probabilities that two independent random variables
and
, each uniformly distributed
on
,
have the same first
partial denominators in their regular
continued fraction representations. Let
be the first index at which their partial
denominators differ. The mean number of iterations needed
to determine whether
or
is given by
|
(1)
| |||
|
(2)
| |||
|
(3)
| |||
|
(4)
|
(OEIS A074903; Finch 2003, p. 161), where is a polylogarithm
and
is the Riemann zeta function.
Let
for
.
The first few values are
|
(5)
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|
(6)
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|
(7)
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|
(8)
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|
(9)
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|
(10)
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|
(11)
| |||
|
(12)
|
The value
|
(13)
|
(OEIS A143302) is then known as the Vallée constant (Finch 2003, p. 161).
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References
Finch, S. R. "Vallée's Constant." §2.19 in Mathematical Constants. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, pp. 160-163, 2003.Sloane, N. J. A. Sequences A074903 and A143302 in "The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences."Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha
Vallée ConstantCite this as:
Weisstein, Eric W. "Vallée Constant." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/ValleeConstant.html