Question: Not periodic function y(x)?

Prove:
If a is an irrational number, then the function
y(x) = cos(a*x) + cosx is not periodic.

Further question:
Since every irrational number can be represented as the limit of a sequence of rational numbers and all software "only" works with finite representations of numbers, it would be interesting to know at what number length for a this becomes in examples apparent in the plot for y(x).

Please Wait...