Journal of the Mathematics Council of the Alberta Teachers’ Association
Volume 33 Issue 2, June 1996
37 – 43
An Intuitive Meaning for the Number e
Murray L. Lauber
Two irrational numbers that crop up continually in mathematics are pi and e. It is easy to attach an intuitive meaning to rt: the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. But in the minds of the majority of students, the number e has no such meaning. And yet, as is the case for many mathematical concepts, attaching an intuitive meaning to e might enrich students’ conceptual frameworks and enable them to make conjectures about how expressions involving e should behave.
