e: The Story of a Number / Eli Maor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maor, Eli, author.

Series:

Princeton science library.

Princeton Science Library ; 41

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

e (The number).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (277 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

Core Textbook

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2011]

Language Note:

English

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

The interest earned on a bank account, the arrangement of seeds in a sunflower, and the shape of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis are all intimately connected with the mysterious number e. In this informal and engaging history, Eli Maor portrays the curious characters and the elegant mathematics that lie behind the number. Designed for a reader with only a modest mathematical background, this biography brings out the central importance of e to mathematics and illuminates a golden era in the age of science.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

1. John Napier, 1614

2 Recognition

Computing with Logarithms

3 Financial Matters

4. To the Limit, If It Exists

Some Curious Numbers Related to e

5. Forefathers of the Calculus

6. Prelude to Breakthrough

Indivisibles at Work

7. Squaring the Hyperbola

8. The Birth of a New Science

9. The Great Controversy

The Evolution of a Notation

10 ex: The Function That Equals Its Own Derivative

The Parachutist

Can Perceptions Be Quantified?

11 eθ Spira Mirabilis

A Historic Meeting between J. S. Bach and Johann Bernoulli

The Logarithmic Spiral in Art and Nature

12 (ex + e-x)/2: The Hanging Chain

Remarkable Analogies

Some Interesting Formulas Involving e

13 eix. "The Most Famous of All Formulas"

A Curious Episode in the History of e

14 ex+iy: The Imaginary Becomes Real

A Most Remarkable Discovery

15. But What Kind of Number Is It?

Appendixes

Appendix 1. Some Additional Remarks on Napier's Logarithms

Appendix 2. The Existence of lim (1+1/n)n as n∞

Appendix 3. A Heuristic Derivation of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus

Appendix 4. The Inverse Relation between lim (bh-1)/h = 1 and lim (1+h)1/h as h0

Appendix 5. An Alternative Definition of the Logarithmic Function

Appendix 6. Two Properties of the Logarithmic Spiral

Appendix 7. Interpretation of the Parameter Hyperbolic Functions

Appendix 8. e to One Hundred Decimal Places

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)

ISBN:

9786613379870

9780691168487

0691168482

9781283379878

1283379872

9781400832347

1400832349

OCLC:

979910801