Dirichlet’s approximation theorem states that for every real number x there exist infinitely many rationals p/q with |x-p/q| < 1/q^2. If x is in the unit interval, then viewing rationals as algebraic numbers of degree 1, q is also the height of its primitive integer polynomial, where height means the maximum of the absolute values of the coefficients. This suggests a more general question: How well can real numbers be approximated by algebraic numbers of degree at most n, relative to their heights? We will discuss Wirsing’s conjecture which proposes an answer to this question and Schmidt and Davenport’s proof of the n = 2 case, as well as some open questions.