Thread: July 23
View Single Post
  #21  
Old 07-24-2006, 02:40 AM
Scooter's Avatar
Scooter Scooter is offline
Doctoral candidate
Staff
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Earth, again
Posts: 831
Send a message via AIM to Scooter
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by evay
I know pi is used in measuring circles, and i is the square root of -1 (so the square root of -4 is 2i), but what's "e" in mathematical terms?
It's a constant roughly equal to 2.7 and has to do with natural logarithms. If I remember correctly e is the limit as n approaches infinity of (1 +1/n)^n. Right, math-heads?

Not very applicable to my chosen field of ancient history. But if anyone asks I can always say Caesar invented it. People usually believe that. (He did invent military cryptography, which has as mathematical basis, so we're not too far afield...)
__________________
An updated list of all my online writing can be found here. Check it out.
Reply With Quote