As motivation, consider the square root of two. It is often approximated 1.414..., which some might incorrectly interpret as 1.41414141414..., or 140/99. Likewise, the reciprocal of the square root of two to three decimal places is 0.707, which is suggestive of 0.70707070..., or 70/99. If 70/99 approximates the reciprocal of the square root of two, it follows that 99/70 approximates the square root of two. As it turns out, the square root of two is between 140/99 and 99/70. The arithmetic mean of these two rationals is 19601/13860. That number squared is 384199201/192099600. It turns out that 2 times the denominator 192099600 is 384199200, which differs from the numerator by only one. p = 19601 and q = 13860 satisfies the Diophantine equation 2q2 + 1 = p2. Any fraction of natural numbers p and q that satisfy this equation will be a reasonably good approximation for the square root of two.
More generally, if n is a given natural number, then any fraction of natural numbers p and q that satisfy Pell's equation
It turns out that if both and satisfy Pell's equation, then so do