Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Euler's number, also known as e, one of the most important and interesting numbers in mathematics.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Euler's number, also known as e. First discovered in the seventeenth century by the Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli when he was studying compound interest, e is now recognised as one of the most important and interesting numbers in mathematics. Roughly equal to 2.718, e is useful in studying many everyday situations, from personal savings to epidemics. It also features in Euler's Identity, sometimes described as the most beautiful equation ever written.
With:
Colva Roney-Dougal
Reader in Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews
June Barrow-Green
Senior Lecturer in the History of Maths at the Open University
Vicky Neale
Whitehead Lecturer at the Mathematical Institute and Balliol College at the University of Oxford
Producer: Thomas Morris.
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
Colva Roney-Dougal at the University of St Andrews
June Barrow-Green at the Open University
Vicky Neale at the University of Oxford
READING LIST:
William Dunham, Euler: The Master of Us All (The Mathematical Association of America, 1999)
Tim Gowers, June Barrow-Green and Imre Leader (eds.), The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (Princeton University Press, 2008)
Jan Gullberg and Peter Hilton, Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers (W W Norton & Co Ltd, 1997)
Julian Havil, John Napier: Life, Logarithms and Legacy (Princeton University Press, 2014)
Georges Ifrah, The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer (John Wiley & Sons, 2000)
Eli Maor, e: The Story of a Number (Princeton University Press, 2009)
Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Melvyn Bragg |
| Interviewed Guest | Colva Roney-Dougal |
| Interviewed Guest | June Barrow-Green |
| Interviewed Guest | Vicky Neale |
| Producer | Thomas Morris |
Broadcasts
- Thu 25 Sep 2014 09:00BBC Radio 4
- Thu 25 Sep 2014 21:30BBC Radio 4
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