e-day - A mathematical holiday celebrated on February 7th

e-day - A mathematical holiday celebrated on February 7th
7 Feb. 2018

Today, February 7th, 2018, is called e-day because e is approximately 2.718, and this date is written 2/7/18 in some parts of the world.

e, also called Euler’s Number after the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, is a very important constant that comes up in many different places in mathematics. The numer e was discovered by the Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli while studying compound interest where e arises as the limit of (1 + 1/n)n as n approaches infinity. e can also be calculated by summing:

The constant e appears naturally on the exponential function, which models growth. Hence, the same way that the constant π appears in everything that is round, the number e appears in everything that grows: size of baby animals, leaves in trees, bacteria populations, spreading of diseases, spirals in flowers and snails, radiactive decay of elements, money invested in a bank, processing power of computers… Everything that grows the faster the bigger it is follows an exponential law, and contains the number e.

e has an infinite number of digits. We prepared a website listing the first 60.000 digits of e and help you find your birthday in it:

e-day website

If we assign a number to each letter in the alphabet we can even find your name within the digits of e, along with the complete works of William Shakespeare, the ending of Game of Thrones (spoiler alert), the full text of the Wikipedia from the year 2030 or what you’ll have tomorrow for breakfast…

At least that’s what conjectured: It is conjectured that e is a normal number. In normal numbers every possible sequence of digits of a certain length appears with the same frequency. There are approximately as many 1s as 9s, as many 23s as 42s, as many 0000s as 1111s, etc. So within the infinite digits of a normal number we are able to find any possible sequence of any finite length.

Happy e-day to you!

Dateien

All News

10 Jun. 2020

On June 10 2020 our latest exhibition I AM A. I. will launch in a digital format. Originally conceived as a travelling exhibition, due to the pandemic situation, we developed new formats to bring I AM A. I. into every household around the globe. Available on www.i-am.ai.Weiterlesen

14 Mär. 2020

On 14 March 2020, the first-ever International Day of Mathematics will take place, celebrating the beauty and importance of mathematics in our everyday lives. This recurring event, proclaimed by UNESCO and co-organized with the International...Weiterlesen

26 Nov. 2019

To celebrate the beauty and importance of mathematics and its essential role in everyone’s life the International Mathematical Union (IMU) has led the project to have UNESCO proclaim March 14 as the International Day of Mathematics (IDM). Today, on November 26th 2019, the 40th General Conference of UNESCO approved the Proclamation of March 14 (Pi Day) as the International Day of Mathematics.Weiterlesen

7 Aug. 2019

I. AM.AI is the name of IMAGINARY’s new exhibition project aiming to communicate Artificial Intelligence, how it works, and its social impacts, to the public.

The exhibition, supported...Weiterlesen

19 Jun. 2019

IMAGINARY grew up at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach (MFO). From 2007 to 2016, we were part of the institute, and even now, we have a very strong bond. Since 2016, IMAGINARY is a non-profit organization, and the MFO is a shareholder of IMAGINARY.

We congratulate to 75 years of...Weiterlesen

Seiten