Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2013
It is well known that the regular continued fraction expansion of a quadratic irrational is symmetric about its centre; we refer to this symmetry as horizontal. However, an additional vertical symmetry is exhibited by the continued fraction expansions arising from a family of quadratics known as Schinzel sleepers. This paper provides a method for generating every Schinzel sleeper and investigates their period lengths as well as both their horizontal and vertical symmetries.