You know the self-proclaimed nerds that pride themselves on knowing pi to 200 digits or somesuch? Why don’t they ever brag about knowing e? Doesn’t anyone love e?
It’s definitely a useful constant. I love graphing functions that involve e. They tend to be very elegant.
As far as why e isn’t as popular as pi, I can think of three reasons.
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Students tend to be introduced to pi in geometry class well before they learn about e in advanced algebra. Some students don’t even start on e until calculus, if they get that far. Pi is thus more well known.
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Pi is easier to explain. All you have know is 3.14 or 22/7 or “It has to do with trying to square a circle.” To get e, you have to do (1+1/n)^n. Not nearly as easy to remember.
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It’s got that cool mysterious symbol. The one that popped up in that black and white movie about that mathematics dude who drilled his own skull. “e” is the most used letter in the English language. Not nearly as cool.
You know, I think I might have the beginnings of my doctoral dissertation in mathematics.
Or maybe it’s time to put the math book away and go to bed. Maybe start jogging again. Yeah.
It’s an interesting question, but I suspect it’s because pi is better known and more commonly used. Even if you’re not into math, you know that it’s involved in finding the area of a circle – something with practical uses. E doesn’t lend itself to as many practical uses (people may indirectly use logarithms, but don’t realize it), and it’s also taught as advanced math whereas pi is discussed in elementary math.
Well, there’s also
∞
∑ 1/k! = e
k=1
I would think that this would attract nerds. So they can laugh at the people who memorize pi and say “You’re memorizing elementary pi, but we’re memorizing e!(not factorial)”
Yeah, but but that works both ways. Let me tell you, it’s some embarrassing shit to be called a geeky, no-life misfit by a guy who’s memorized 200 digits of pi for no good reason.