I understand the special properties of e^x, how the value is the same as the area under the curve and so on, but like, why that number specifically? How the fuck did Euler figure that out?
Take the derivative of the Taylor expansion brainlet
>>8865020
It was discovered when playing around with the limits of series that arise in finance.
Was Euler on the spectrum?
>>8865162
Everyone unironically doing anything beyond calculus I is on the spectrum.
>>8865048
derive the taylor expansion without the derivative first.
By calculating an intrest wrongly
It's not that hard.
>ancient brainlet trying to differentiate exponential function
[eqn]f'(x)=\lim_{h \rightarrow 0}\frac{f(x+h)-f(x)}{h} = a^x \lim_{h \rightarrow 0} \frac{a^h-1}{h}[/eqn]
which naturally begs the question how the limit
[eqn]\lim_{h \rightarrow 0} \frac{a^h-1}{h}[/eqn]
behaves.
It's really not that hard to guess nonrigorously that there's a number a such that the above limit is 1, and that the value of a is
[eqn]\lim_{t\rightarrow 0}(1 + t)^{1/t}[/eqn]
because thats like the perfect thing to cancel out the other shit, assuming nonrigorously that we can interchange the limits and all that shit.
I don't know.
>>8865154
https://youtu.be/AuA2EAgAegE?t=3m
>>8865020
Look at the definition of the exp() function. It is in terms of a series.
If you calculate the derivative of each you will get the same series again.