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What is e? By Kaichun Liu
Before writing something really related to the topic, I would like to draw your attention to π first. What is π? If I ask my little sister who is 12 years old what π is she can definitely tell me that π is a constant and has the value of 3.1415926…… I have no idea how many decimal places she can count to but I am pretty sure it will be enough for calculations. However, what is the definition of π,or what does π actually represent? The question is also easy and I will answer for my little sister – it is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. All right, what if I replace π with e and ask you the same question? If you can recall its value to the nineth decimal place immediately please text Dr. Purchase and see if he is impressed. However, it is not enough, so far, you have only got 1 mark. WHAT IS THE DEFINATION? WHAT DOES e STAND FOR?!!! To be honest, I myself actually had no idea. Thus I asked help from the mighty Wikipedia. Wikipedia generously provided me with a beautifully organized definition -- The mathematical constant e is the base of the natural logarithm. “ What is natural logarithm then?” The natural logarithm, formerly known as the hyperbolic logarithm, is the logarithm to the base e, where e is an irrational constant approximately equal to 2.718281828459.
Did you really tell me anything?
So what is e? Let us take a look at this example first.
Let’s assume that a cell will split into two in a day, so mathematically, after a day, we will get two new cells. If we need to write a formulae of how many cells we ݕ ൌ 2 ௫ However, according to cell biology, each 12 hours, which the split is halfway through, there are a number of new cells which equals the total number of the original cells have been produced and have started splitting into next generation. In fact, the growth speeds up as time goes—although the rate of splitting (the ratio) remains at 100%, the base number is continuously growing, which makes will get after x days, that will be
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