e : The story of a number

Includes index

Includes bibliography (p. 217-220) and references

1. John Napier, 1614 2. Recognition 3. Financial Matters 4. To the Limit, If It Exists 5. Forefathers of the Calculus 6. Prelude to Breakthrough 7. Squaring the Hyperbola 8. The Birth of a New Science 9. The Great Controversy 10. e[superscript x]: The Function That Equals its Own Derivative 11. e[superscript theta]: Spira Mirabilis 12. (e[superscript x] + e[superscript -x])/2: The Hanging Chain 13. e[superscript ix]: "The Most Famous of All Formulas" 14. e[superscript x + iy]: The Imaginary Becomes Real 15. But What Kind of Number Is It?

The story of [pi] has been told many times, both in scholarly works and in popular books. But its close relative, the number e, has fared less well: despite the central role it plays in mathematics, its history has never before been written for a general audience. The present work fills this gap. Geared to the reader with only a modest background in mathematics, the book describes the story of e from a human as well as a mathematical perspective. In a sense, it is the story of an entire period in the history of mathematics, from the early seventeenth to the late nineteenth century, with the invention of calculus at its center. Many of the players who took part in this story are here brought to life.