(no subject)

[learnedax]

New York plans to construct a tower 1776' high for technically symbolic reasons. Too bad they're not comemorating the Whiskey rebellion, or we could get a tower of e furlongs. Wouldn't that be much nicer?

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Right. I was hoping that was the case, or my understanding of transcendental (heck, irrational) numbers was way off.

On the other hand, you can demonstrate pi, just not draw a line of length pi, with a compass (i.e., point to the circumference of a circle). My mind is trying to create some infinite-regress of seashell spirals to demonstrate e similarly...

[katkt.livejournal.com]

You *can* draw many irrational numbers, just not transcendental numbers. You can, for example, construct the square root of two (the diagonal of a square).

Algebraic numbers are the numbers that are roots of some polynomial equation (with integer coefficients not all equal to zero). Transcendental numbers are the ones that aren't algebraic.

I don't really have a good enough intuitive understanding of e to have an idea how to demonstrate it geometrically.

[siderea]

You know, it's pretty much impossible to google on "e". Hrmmmm.

[katkt.livejournal.com]

But you can find it if you look in the right places.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Yes, or you could just for "number e" and turn up all sorts of interesting stuff.