Reciprocal Fibonacci constant

Mathematical constant

The reciprocal Fibonacci constant ψ is the sum of the reciprocals of the Fibonacci numbers:

ψ = k = 1 1 F k = 1 1 + 1 1 + 1 2 + 1 3 + 1 5 + 1 8 + 1 13 + 1 21 + . {\displaystyle \psi =\sum _{k=1}^{\infty }{\frac {1}{F_{k}}}={\frac {1}{1}}+{\frac {1}{1}}+{\frac {1}{2}}+{\frac {1}{3}}+{\frac {1}{5}}+{\frac {1}{8}}+{\frac {1}{13}}+{\frac {1}{21}}+\cdots .}

Because the ratio of successive terms tends to the reciprocal of the golden ratio, which is less than 1, the ratio test shows that the sum converges.

The value of ψ is approximately

ψ = 3.359885666243177553172011302918927179688905133732 {\displaystyle \psi =3.359885666243177553172011302918927179688905133732\dots } (sequence A079586 in the OEIS).

With k terms, the series gives O(k) digits of accuracy. Bill Gosper derived an accelerated series which provides O(k 2) digits.[1] ψ is irrational, as was conjectured by Paul Erdős, Ronald Graham, and Leonard Carlitz, and proved in 1989 by Richard André-Jeannin.[2]

Its continued fraction representation is:

ψ = [ 3 ; 2 , 1 , 3 , 1 , 1 , 13 , 2 , 3 , 3 , 2 , 1 , 1 , 6 , 3 , 2 , 4 , 362 , 2 , 4 , 8 , 6 , 30 , 50 , 1 , 6 , 3 , 3 , 2 , 7 , 2 , 3 , 1 , 3 , 2 , ] {\displaystyle \psi =[3;2,1,3,1,1,13,2,3,3,2,1,1,6,3,2,4,362,2,4,8,6,30,50,1,6,3,3,2,7,2,3,1,3,2,\dots ]\!\,} (sequence A079587 in the OEIS).

See also

References

  1. ^ Gosper, William R. (1974), Acceleration of Series, Artificial Intelligence Memo #304, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, p. 66, hdl:1721.1/6088.
  2. ^ André-Jeannin, Richard (1989), "Irrationalité de la somme des inverses de certaines suites récurrentes", Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, Série I, 308 (19): 539–541, MR 0999451


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