e
The Story of a Number, by
Eli Maor, is a fascinating book in which Maor does an outstanding job of
explaining the origins of the number e even though the origins of e are
not very clear. There are many great mathematicians that have in some way
contributed to the discovery of e. For instance, John Napier dedicated
20 years of his life to create continuous logarithmic tables (by his definition
of logarithm). He didn’t discover the number e, but he came surprisingly close, and his
work in the development and understanding of logarithms were vital in e's discovery.
In Eli Maor's promulgation of the origins
of the number e, he provides the reader with an
evolutionary perspective of mathematics by presenting the history of these
great mathematicians, their contributions and discoveries that have developed
mathematics, and the mathematical
proofs and equations themselves. It's the fine job that Eli Maor does of
balancing these things that allows for a better understanding of the different
contributions vital to the evolution of mathematics and the discovery of e. For example, in the 1600's both
Newton and Leibniz discovered calculus, and the only differences between their
techniques were the forms of words and symbols of which they used. They
did not discover the number e, but
without their contribution to the developments of calculus we would not have
known how to differentiate. AND furthermore, we would not be able to declare
the function y=e^x as the
function that equals its own derivative.
Eli Maor goes beyond the discovery of this
mystical limit/number thing, e, by discussing how great mathematicians such as
the Bernoullis’ and Euler have further expanded the far reaching
capabilities of mathematics by combining calculus, trigonometry, and
mathematical analyses using e, pi, and i. Not only will the reader gain a better understanding of the
origins and evolution of different mathematical techniques and notation that
are used today, the reader will gain a better understanding of the beauty
of mathematics in its ability to explain the natural world we live in.
There are some chapters of the book that
at first seem out of place, or irrelevant to the previous chapter or page, but
Eli Maor is purposeful in choosing when to introduce certain topics, as well as
when to delve into certain topics so that the reader is better prepared for
topics later on. Overall, this book is a great read for those with a
moderate level of mathematical knowledge, and will definitely provide insight
as to the origins of one of the greatest, perhaps most mystical, numbers of all
time, e.
