A Glimpse of the Markoff Spectrum
Physical and Biological Sciences
Math 195 Senior Thesis
In this paper, we describe an algorithm for producing a plot of part of the Markoff spectrum. We approach the spectrum from the the theory of indefinite binary quadratic forms and develop some of this theory in a visual way, using the range topograph of Conway. This simplifies many of the relevant proofs and gives an elementary algorithm for computing equivalent reduced binary quadratic forms and finding their minima.
