Finite continued fraction
a. An infinite continued fraction is an expression of the form
f = N₁
-------------
D₁ + N₂
-----------
D₂ + N₃
-----------
D₃ + ...
As an example, one can show that the infinite continued fraction expansion with the
Ni
and the
Di
all equal to 1 produces
1/φ
, where
φ
is the golden ratio (described in section 1.2.2). One way to approximate an infinite continued fraction is to truncate the expansion after a given number of terms. Such a truncation -- a so-called
k
-term finite continued fraction -- has the form
N₁
---------------
D₁ + N₂
-----------
+ Nk
-------
Dk
Suppose that
n
and
d
are procedures of one argument (the term index
i
) that return the
Ni
and
Di
of the terms of the continued fraction. Define a procedure
cont-frac
such that evaluating
(cont-frac n d k)
computes the value of the
k
-term finite continued fraction. Check your procedure by approximating
1/φ
using
(cont-frac (lambda (i) 1.0)
(lambda (i) 1.0)
k)
or successive values of
k
. How large must you make
k
in order to get an approximation that is accurate to 4 decimal places?
b. If your
cont-frac
procedure generates a recursive process, write one that generates an iterative process. If it generates an iterative process, write one that generates a recursive process.