Pell's equation

Pell's equation, also called the Pell–Fermat equation, is any Diophantine equation of the form where n is a given positive nonsquare integer, and integer solutions are sought for x and y. In Cartesian coordinates, the equation is represented by a hyperbola; solutions occur wherever the curve passes through a point whose x and y coordinates are both integers, such as the trivial solution with x = 1 and y = 0. Joseph Louis Lagrange proved that, as long as n is not a perfect square, Pell's equation has infinitely many distinct integer solutions. These solutions may be used to accurately approximate the square root of n by rational numbers of the form x/y. This equation was first studied extensively in India starting with Brahmagupta, who found an integer solution to in his Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta circa 628. Bhaskara II in the 12th century and Narayana Pandit in the 14th century both found general solutions to Pell's equation and other quadratic indeterminate equations. Bhaskara II is generally credited with developing the chakravala method, building on the work of Jayadeva and Brahmagupta. Solutions to specific examples of Pell's equation, such as the Pell numbers arising from the equation with n = 2, had been known for much longer, since the time of Pythagoras in Greece and a similar date in India. William Brouncker was the first European to solve Pell's equation. The name of Pell's equation arose from Leonhard Euler mistakenly attributing Brouncker's solution of the equation to John Pell. As early as 400 BC in India and Greece, mathematicians studied the numbers arising from the n = 2 case of Pell's equation, and from the closely related equation because of the connection of these equations to the square root of 2. Indeed, if x and y are positive integers satisfying this equation, then x/y is an approximation of . The numbers x and y appearing in these approximations, called side and diameter numbers, were known to the Pythagoreans, and Proclus observed that in the opposite direction these numbers obeyed one of these two equations.