In number theory

Number theory

Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...

, Hurwitz's theorem, named after Adolf Hurwitz

Adolf Hurwitz

Adolf Hurwitz was a German mathematician.-Early life:He was born to a Jewish family in Hildesheim, former Kingdom of Hannover, now Lower Saxony, Germany, and died in Zürich, in Switzerland. Family records indicate that he had siblings and cousins, but their names have yet to be confirmed...

, gives a bound on a Diophantine approximation

Diophantine approximation

In number theory, the field of Diophantine approximation, named after Diophantus of Alexandria, deals with the approximation of real numbers by rational numbers....

. The theorem states that for every irrational number

Irrational number

In mathematics, an irrational number is any real number that cannot be expressed as a ratio a/b, where a and b are integers, with b non-zero, and is therefore not a rational number....

 ξ there are infinitely many rationals

Rational number

In mathematics, a rational number is any number that can be expressed as the quotient or fraction a/b of two integers, with the denominator b not equal to zero. Since b may be equal to 1, every integer is a rational number...

 m/n such that


The hypothesis that ξ is irrational cannot be omitted. Moreover the constant is the best possible; if we replace by any number and we let (the golden ratio

Golden ratio

In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.61803398874989...

) then there exist only finitely many rational numbers m/n such that the formula above holds.