Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

E, Doyle K. Brooks

Master's Theses

The meteoric splendor of the transcendental constant e is an intriguing mystery. It rises unexpectedly from nowhere, brilliantly illuminates some obscure mathematical concept, points to its solution, and abruptly fades into oblivion. Its unheralded visitation leaves the student wiser but wondering, tantalized by its omnipotence in apparently unrelated fields. Ever since his first introduction to e in elementary logarithms it has seemed to the writer that all the authors of textbooks are in a conspiracy to defeat any real knowledge of e. They say "2.71828… , called e, is the base of Naperian logarithms." Why? "The derivative of eX is …