Type: Article
Publication Date: 2000-01-01
Citations: 155
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4064/aa-95-2-139-166
2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 11J61, 11J70.Supported in part by NSF grant DMS-9710314.( 1 ) I had been tempted to introduce a different convention, with the + signs in (1.1), (1.2) replaced by -, and setting Q -2 = -1.This would make some sense in the function field case (where positivity of partial quotients is not defined) by simplifying a number of formulas (e.g., the right hand side of (1.5) would become 1).I gave up on this idea since it would have made it harder to connect with the existing literature.