High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Proofs of the famous mathematical result that the rational number 22 7 is greater than date back to antiquity. What follows is a one-line modern mathematical proof that 22 7 , requiring only elementary techniques from calculus. The purpose is not primarily to convince the reader that 22 7 is indeed bigger than ; systematic methods of computing the value of exist. Unlike some elementary proofs, the calculus-based proof presented here is straightforward; its elegance results from its connections to the theory of diophantine approximations. Stephen Lucas calls this proposition "One of the more beautiful results related to approximating ". Julian Havil ends a discussion of continued fraction approximations of with the result, describing it as "impossible to resist mentioning" in that context.