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The number e is a mathematical constant approximately equal to 2.71828 that is the base of the natural logarithm and exponential function.It is sometimes called Euler's number, after the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, though this can invite confusion with Euler numbers, or with Euler's constant, a different constant typically denoted .
In doing so, he discovered a connection between Riemann zeta function and prime numbers, known as the Euler product formula for the Riemann zeta function. Euler proved Newton's identities , Fermat's little theorem , Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares , and made distinct contributions to the Lagrange's four-square theorem .
The formula is still valid if x is a complex number, and is also called Euler's formula in this more general case. [1] Euler's formula is ubiquitous in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and engineering. The physicist Richard Feynman called the equation "our jewel" and "the most remarkable formula in mathematics". [2]
Euler also discovered the formula + = relating the number of vertices, edges, and faces of a convex polyhedron, [92] and hence of a planar graph. The constant in this formula is now known as the Euler characteristic for the graph (or other mathematical object), and is related to the genus of the object. [93]
For example, many asymptotic expansions are derived from the formula, and Faulhaber's formula for the sum of powers is an immediate consequence. The formula was discovered independently by Leonhard Euler and Colin Maclaurin around 1735. Euler needed it to compute slowly converging infinite series while Maclaurin used it to calculate integrals.
Euler's identity therefore states that the limit, as n approaches infinity, of (+) is equal to −1. This limit is illustrated in the animation to the right. Euler's formula for a general angle. Euler's identity is a special case of Euler's formula, which states that for any real number x,
In combinatorics, the Eulerian number (,) is the number of permutations of the numbers 1 to in which exactly elements are greater than the previous element (permutations with "ascents"). Leonhard Euler investigated them and associated polynomials in his 1755 book Institutiones calculi differentialis .
Euler's constant (sometimes called the Euler–Mascheroni constant) is a mathematical constant, usually denoted by the lowercase Greek letter gamma (γ), defined as the limiting difference between the harmonic series and the natural logarithm, denoted here by log: