Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 2

59.

3 The Irrationality of #2
T. Estermann
The Mathematical Gazette, Vol. 59, No. 408. (Jun., 1975), p. 110.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0025-5572%28197506%292%3A59%3A408%3C110%3A5TIO%5B%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6
The Mathematical Gazette is currently published by The Mathematical Association.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained
prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in
the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/journals/mathas.html.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic
journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers,
and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take
advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
http://www.jstor.org
Thu Mar 6 23:21:27 2008
110 THE MATHEMATICAL GAZETTE
In Who's who his recreations were given as "travelling and the usual
school games" until he was sixty. On his 60th birthday he competed in a
seven-mile cross country run of the Wirral Athletic Club; thereafter his sole
recreation was "travelling". He had also a remarkable private library, and
was an authority on local history in the Wirral. He was a schoolmaster all
his working life-at Gresham's School, Holt and at Rossall and Solihull
and (1927-30) in Natal; from 1930 to 1946 he was headmaster of Birkenhead
School. He was for many years a staunch supporter of the Liverpool
Mathematical Society (later a branch of the M.A.). To be driven back to
Birkenhead by him through the Mersey tunnel after attending a meeting of
that society was a memorable experience-not least for the running com-
mentary maintained in his great voice above the roar of the traffic.
The photograph of W. F. Bushel1 in Gazette 31 suggests a bulldog
personality but less clearly his large-heartedness, loyalty and uninhibited
friendliness. His last days were much marred by rheumatism and arthritis
which rendered him almost immobile; they were relieved by the care and
attention of his devoted housekeeper, Mary, until about two years ago
when her own health compelled her t o make way for another no less
careful of his comfort.
I am indebted to Professor A. G. Walker, F.R.S. and to two other mem-
bers of our Liverpool branch for help in preparing this obituary notice.
J. T. COMBRIDGE
Notes
59.3 The irrationality of .f2
The following proof of the irrationality of 2/2 seems to me simpler than
that which is usually attributed to Pythagoras.
Let S be the set of those natural numbers n for which n2/2 is an integer.
If S were not empty, it would have a least element k, say. Consider the
number (2/2 - 1)k. Then
and, since k E S, both ( 4 2 - l ) k and 2k -k 4 2 are natural numbers. So,
by definition ( 4 2 -1) k E S.But ( 4 2 - 1) k <k, contradicting the assump-
tion that k is the least element of S. Hence S is empty, which means that 2/2
is irrational.
If in this proof we replace 2 by any natural number h whose square root
is not an integer, and replace 1 by the greatest integer less than d h , we
obtain a proof that the square root of any natural number is either an
integer or irrational.
T.ESTERMANN
2 Lyndale Avenue, London NW2 2P Y

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi