Interesting Math History |
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Question : |
What does 'e' stands for in arithmetic ? |
Answer : |
e is the base of the Napier or Hyperbolic system of logarithms.
e = 2.71821828459045. |
It is a unique real mathematical constant. In 1618 John Napier published the first references to the constant in the table
of an appendix of a work on logarithms.
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In 1690 and 1691 the first known use of the constant, represented by the letter b.
In 1727 Leonhard Euler started to use the letter e for the constant and the first use of e in a publication was Euler's
Mechanica in 1736.
'c' was also used by some researchers but e was more common and eventually became the standard.
The reason of using e may be the first letter of word 'exponential' is e.
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