Got your number…
Euler’s Number (e): 2.7182…
Euler’s number is also known as the exponential growth constant. It is the base for natural logarithms and is found in many areas of mathematics.
Application: In finance, Euler’s number is used to determine compound interest, which is extremely vital in understanding the time value of money — the backbone of finance.
Moreover, Euler’s number is crucial when describing any decaying relationship – think Carbon 14 dating.
… and then there are the other 9 “10 Most Important Numbers in the World.”
###
As we activate the abaci, we might send carefully-calculated birthday wishes to Stephen Smale; the Wolf Prize-winning mathematician was born on this date in 1930. Among many other accomplishments, Smale helped develop the logistic model for population growth– one of the foundational insights that allowed the development of chaos theory (and thus, enhanced our understanding of the way in which natural systems actually work)– one of the 17 Equations That Changed the World:
