Stern–Brocot tree
infinite complete binary tree whose nodes correspond to the positive rational numbers
In number theory, the Stern–Brocot tree is an infinite complete binary tree whose vertices are in bijection with the positive rational numbers and whose values are ordered from the left to the right as in a binary search tree.
The Stern–Brocot tree was introduced independently by Moritz Stern (1858) and Achille Brocot (1861). Stern was a German number theorist; Brocot was a French clockmaker who used the Stern–Brocot tree to design systems of gears with a gear ratio close to some desired value by finding a ratio of smooth numbers near that value.
The root of the Stern–Brocot tree corresponds to the number 1. The parent-child relation between numbers in the Stern–Brocot tree may be defined in terms of simple continued fractions or mediants, and a path in the tree from the root to any other number q provides a sequence of approximations to q with smaller denominators than q. Because the tree contains each positive rational number exactly once, a breadth first search of the tree provides a method of listing all positive rationals that is closely related to Farey sequences. The left subtree of the Stern–Brocot tree, containing the rational numbers in the range (0,1), is called the Farey tree.
Generating rule
Each vertex in the tree can be associated with a triple of fractions consisting of three fractions in the same row as the vertex, namely the fraction immediately to the left of the vertex, the fraction at the vertex itself, and the fraction immediately to the right of the vertex. (Refer to the figure above.) The left and right fractions do not correspond to vertices in the same row as the vertex, but rather to vertices in some preceding row. Each such fraction can be understood as labeling the region of the plane bounded by two infinite paths descending from the preceding vertex labeled by the same fraction.
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