where does the irrational number e come from
The first references to the constant were published in 1618 in the table of an appendix of a work on logarithms by John Napier.
E (mathematical constant)
The first references to the constant were published in 1618 in the table of an appendix of a work on logarithms by John Napier.
wiki:7769106
E (mathematical constant) [SEP] History
The first references to the constant were published in 1618 in the table of an appendix of a work on logarithms by John Napier. However, this did not contain the constant itself, but simply a list of logarithms calculated from the constant. It is assumed that the table was written by William Oughtred. The discovery of the constant itself is credited to Jacob Bernoulli in 1683, who attempted to find the value of the following expression (which is equal to ): The first known use of the constant, represented by the letter , was in correspondence from Gottfried Leibniz to Christiaan Huygens in 1690 and 1691.