Reciprocals of Irrational Numbers
Every number excluding zero has a reciprocal, and reciprocals of certain irrational numbers often can prove useful for reasons linked to the irrational number in question. Examples of this are the reciprocal of e which is special because no other positive number can produce a lower number when put to the power of itself, and the golden ratio's reciprocal which, being roughly 0.6180339887, is exactly one less than the golden ratio and in turn illustrates the uniqueness of the number.
There are an infinite number of irrational reciprocal pairs that differ by an integer (giving the curious effect that the pairs share their infinite mantissa). These pairs can be found by simplifying n+√(n2+1) for any integer n, and taking the reciprocal.
Read more about this topic: Multiplicative Inverse
Famous quotes containing the words irrational and/or numbers:
“It is clear that all verbal structures with meaning are verbal imitations of that elusive psychological and physiological process known as thought, a process stumbling through emotional entanglements, sudden irrational convictions, involuntary gleams of insight, rationalized prejudices, and blocks of panic and inertia, finally to reach a completely incommunicable intuition.”
—Northrop Frye (b. 1912)
“And when all bodies meet
In Lethe to be drowned,
Then only numbers sweet
With endless life are crowned.”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)