[Math] Do the Liouville Numbers form a field

field-theoryreal-analysistranscendental-numbers

The Liouville numbers are those which are better-than-polynomially approximated by rationals. More precisely, we say $x\in\mathbb{R}$ is Liouville when for all $n\in\mathbb{N}$ there is a $\tfrac pq\in\mathbb{Q}$ with
$$\left|x-\frac{p}{q}\right|<\frac{1}{q^n}.$$
For the purposes of this question, we will take rational numbers to be Liouville.

Do the Liouville numbers form a field? It seems to me that if $x\simeq \tfrac pq$ and $x'\simeq \tfrac {p'}{q'}$ then $x+x',x-x',xx'$ and $x/x'$ are approximated by $\tfrac pq+\tfrac {p'}{q'},\tfrac pq-\tfrac {p'}{q'},\tfrac pq\tfrac {p'}{q'}$ and $\tfrac pq/\tfrac {p'}{q'}$, with the approximation only getting quadratically worse in each case.

But I've never seen it mentioned anywhere that the Liouville numbers form a field, and you would think that if they were the wikipedia page would at least mention it.

So are they or not?

Best Answer

Not even an additive group. One of the celebrated results by Paul Erdős is that for every real number $t$ there exists Liouville numbers $x$, $y$, $u$, $v$ such that

$$t=x+y=uv$$

The reference is

Paul Erdős. Representations of Real Numbers as Sums and Products of Liouville Numbers. Michigan Math. Journal 9, pp.59--60, 1962.