A previously unexplored method, combining logical and mathematical elements, is shown to yield substantial numerical improvements in the area of Diophantine approximations. Kreisel illustrated the method abstractly by noting that effective bounds on the number of elements are ensured if Herbrand terms from ineffective proofs ofΣ2-finiteness theorems satisfy certain simple growth conditions. Here several efficient growth conditions for the same purpose are presented that are actually satisfied in practice, in particular, by the proofs of Roth's theorem due to Roth himself (...) and to Esnault and Viehweg. The analysis of the former yields an exponential bound of order exp in place of exp given by Davenport and Roth in 1955, whereαis algebraic of degreed≥ 2 and ∣α−pq−1∣ shrink)