A Note on the Elementary Proofs of Generalized

Continued Fraction Formula for e

Johar M. Ashfaque♠

♠
Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Campus E1 5,
66123 Saarbrücken, Germany

Abstract
Based on the results of [1], we consider the following generalized continued
fraction formula for e
2
e=2+
3
2+
4
3+
5
4+
+···
which is generated from the first generalized continued fraction formula by a
simple equivalence transformation of that given in [1].
1 Introduction
Given a generalized continued fraction formula, the following steps highlight the
process to verify it:
• extract {an } and {bn } terms;

• obtain the recursive formulae for An and Bn using

An = bn An−1 + an An−2

Bn = bn Bn−1 + an Bn−2
for n ≥ 1 with A−1 = 1, A0 = b0 , B−1 = 0 and B0 = 1.

• compute the first few terms of An and Bn and obtain the closed-form for them.

• compute the limit

An
lim .
n→∞ Bn

We will consider the following generalized continued fraction formula for e

2
e=2+
3
2+
4
3+
5
4+
+···

2 The Details
In this case, we have

A−1 = 1, A0 = 2, B−1 = 0, B0 = 1.

We obtain
an = n + 1, n ≥ 1,
bn = n + 1, n ≥ 1.
We then find the following sequence of numbers for An

2, 6, 24, 120, 720, 5040, ...

which means that An = (n + 2)!, n ≥ 0. We then find the following sequence of

numbers for Bn
1, 2, 9, 44, 265, 1854, ...

2
which means that
n+2
X (−1)k
Bn = (n + 2)!
k=2
k!
for n ≥ 0. We then find that as the number n tends to infinity, the limit approaches
1/e and therefore
An 1
lim = lim Pn+2 (−1)k = e.
n→∞ Bn n→∞
k=2 k!

References
[1] Elementary Proofs of Generalized Continued Fraction Formulae for e,
Zhentao Lu