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by azeemba 948 days ago
Phi/golden ratio also has a cool continued fraction sequence...it's only 1's all the way down
2 comments

Larger integers in continued fractions mean you get 'more information' out of the limb. That means not only is Phi "1s all the way down" it is the continued fraction that converges the slowest. If you've ever used the iterated matrix product (which is a specific edge-case of the algorithm to convert continued fractions to decimals), you'll know how slow it is!
Square roots in general have periodic patterns. Which isn't too surprising, something like z = a/(b+cz) is pretty much a quadratic equation after all.

But phi is indeed especially interesting because of what its sequence implies for rational approximations of phi.