The first example of a transcendental number was given by Liouville in 1844. In 1873 Hermite proved that \(e\) is transcendental. In order to do that he utilized the analogy between simultaneous Diophantine approximation of real numbers and simultaneous rational approximation of analytic functions. In this talk I will explain Hermite's proof and its later modification by Lindemann who showed that π is transcendental as well.
Let f be an algebraic function holomorphic at infinity with all its singularities contained in the unit disk, D. Let further {rn} be a sequence of H2best rational approximants to f on the unit circle. We show that {rn} converges in capacity to f in C\K, the unique domain characterized by the property of minimal condenser capacity of the compact K relative to D among all compacts that make f single-valued, and that the counting measures of the poles of rn weakly converge to the Green equilibrium distribution on K relative to D. En route to this result we show that for any Borel probability measure ν, supp(ν)⊆D, there exists the unique weighted extremal domain C\Γν such that rational interpolants to f whose interpolation points are distributed asymptotically as ν* converge to f in capacity in C\(Γν ∪ supp(ν*)), where ν* is the reciprocal measure of ν.