You should edit that Wikipedia article then -- look up natural logarithms.
Joanna ----- Original Message ----- Joanna: > The first mention of the natural logarithm was by Nicholas Mercator in his > work Logarithmotechnia published in > 1668, [ 2 ] although the mathematics teacher John Speidell had already in > 1619 compiled a table on the natural > logarithm. [ 3 ] It was formerly also called hyperbolic logarithm, [ 4 ] as > it corresponds to the area under a hyperbola . > It is also sometimes referred to as the Napierian logarithm , although the > original meaning of this term is slightly different. > > ??? Much earlier than that. Goes back to Babylonia of BC 2000s. The formula (1+r/n)^(nt) is how much you will pay back to your lender t years later if your interest rate is r per year and interest is compounded n times a year. The number "e" originated from debt/finance in Mesopotamia about 4000-5000 years ago. Babylonians knew about logarithms then, although not exactly in the same way we now know. It was not science, it was finance from which the exponential function originated. Best, Sabri _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
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