The first references to the constant were published in 1618 in the table of an appendix of a work on logarithms by John Napier. However, this did not contain the constant itself, but simply a list of logarithms to the base $${\displaystyle e}$$

The principal motivation for introducing the number e, particularly in calculus, is to perform differential and integral calculus with

The number e can be represented in a variety of ways: as an infinite series, an infinite product, a continued fraction, or a limit of a sequence.

1. ^ Weisstein, Eric W. "e". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
2. ^ Pickover, Clifford A. (2009). The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 Milestones in the History of Mathematics (illustrated ed.). Sterling Publishing Company. p.

Compound interest
Jacob Bernoulli discovered this constant in 1683, while studying a question about compound interest:
An account starts with $1.00 and pays 100 percent interest per year. If the interest is credited once, at the end

Calculus
As in the motivation, the exponential function e is important in part because it is the unique nontrivial

During the emergence of internet culture, individuals and organizations sometimes paid homage to the number e.
In an early example, the computer scientist Donald Knuth let