On the continued fractions of quadratic surds

Abstract

defined over the field of rational numbers Q is normal. They do this by noting that, over a field of characteristic 3, F (X) equals 1/ √ 1 + 1/X. The latter has a periodic continued fraction and, as a consequence, they are able to explicitly verify that F (X) is normal. They then use an “automatic” proof to show that the Laurent series of F (X), defined over Q, is normal. Here we shall give a different proof of the latter result (Theorem 4, below) and show, more generally, that if a formal Laurent series Γ (X) defined over Q is defined and normal (mod p) for any prime p, then it is also normal over Q. We shall also consider the continued fraction of the more general surd 1/ √ 1 + u/X + v/X2 over any field not of characteristic 2. Put δ = u/4−v and note that √ 1 + u/X + v/X2 = 1 + u/(2X) when δ = 0. Hence, when δ = 0, the continued fraction expansion is trivial and is not normal. Define