tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Is this a good mathoverflow question?)

Scott Morrison comments on "Is this a good mathoverflow question?" (16775)

Scott Morrison — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:26:13 -0700

I'll close the thread.

Vassilis Parassidis comments on "Is this a good mathoverflow question?" (16774)

Vassilis Parassidis — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:19:32 -0700

How do I now withdraw this question?

Vassilis Parassidis comments on "Is this a good mathoverflow question?" (16773)

Vassilis Parassidis — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:26:33 -0700

Thank you voloch for the comments.

Henry Cohn comments on "Is this a good mathoverflow question?" (16772)

Henry Cohn — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:26:16 -0700

Regarding expressing a/(a^2+1) as a continued fraction, its simple continued fraction expansion is [0,a,a] (if a is a natural number). Is that what you mean? There are other continued fraction expansions for it, but it is not clear that they are interesting or important.

In any case, I agree with Felipe that as stated this isn't a clear or well motivated question.

voloch comments on "Is this a good mathoverflow question?" (16770)

voloch — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 13:03:06 -0700

This is a bad question.

1. You say you have a method. You don't say anything about your method. Is it relevant to the rest of the question?

2. What is "a"? Is it an integer, rational number, real or something else altogether?

3. Continued fraction (not continuous fraction). I kept reading this as continuous function and it made even less sense.

4. Now we get to the real question. We still need an answer to 2. above. What restrictions are you imposing on Kn, Mn? Your oblique reference to continued fractions (but see 3.) makes me think you want them to be integers, but then they can't be convergent, unless constant. So maybe they are not integers, so what are they? What do you mean by a method? What's wrong with a constant sequence?

5. Why should we care? What is the purpose of this question.

It seems to me that you have obtained some results on your own and want to see how interesting/hard/whatever they are. Asking cryptic questions on MO is not the way to find out. MO has a very specific purpose, explained in the FAQ.

Vassilis Parassidis comments on "Is this a good mathoverflow question?" (16769)

Vassilis Parassidis — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:37:48 -0700

I have a method to express numbers of the form a/(a^2+1) as continuous fractions. Is there a method to express these numbers as a ratio of two converging sequences such as that a/(a^2+1)≈Kn/Mn?