The Number That’s Everywhere
What is e?
e is a transcendental irrational number. It is roughly 2.718281828459045. It’s also the base of the natural logarithm. That means that by definition, if ln(x) = y, then ey = x.
Given my highly warped sense of humor and my love of bad puns (especially bad geek puns), I like to call e the unnatural natural number. It’s natural in the sense that it’s the base of the natural logarithm; but it’s not a natural number according to the usual definition of natural numbers. (Hey, I warned you that it was going to be a bad geek pun!)
But that’s not a sufficient answer. We call it the natural logarithm. Why is a bizarre irrational number that’s just a bit smaller than 2 ¾ considered natural?
The answer becomes ...
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