March 06, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
The Five Important Numbers
Not teaching their citizen mathematics is a
risk today’s politicians, dictators, monarchs and generals simply cannot take
no matter with what personal distaste they view this subject themselves.
So what is it about Jacob Bernoulli that is
so important that I continue to harp and linger on upon him?
Well, we all know that mathematical
equations are great when you apply them to physics and ideal bodies that are only
close approximations to the real world.
In the real world, more so in arenas like
biology, economics, medicine and complex phenomena such as weather or even box
containing large number of molecules of air, simple mathematical equations
resist to display their power.
Here something else works far better than
bare mathematical equations, which is a different kind of mathematics that we goes
by the name of statistics and probability.
These mathematical branches can perhaps be
generally called law of large numbers which was the name Jacob had proposed.
But before I go to this topic of law of
large numbers, what I found most surprising about Jacob Bernoulli was his
association with the mathematical constant 𝒆
Now I had it in my mind that the
mathematical constant
is called the Euler’s number and hence I took
it as a given that Euler must have discovered this number.
But that is not the case.
It was Jacob Bernoulli of the Bernoulli
Numbers who discovered this constant in 1683 just about the time when the
Leibniz-Newton calculus controversy was about to blow up.
Mathematics or rather mathematicians hold
five numbers in very high esteem, almost as if they were the pillars on which
the massive edifice of mathematics stands.
These five numbers are 0, 1, 𝞹 , 𝒊 and the number 𝒆.
Many consider e to be the most important
constant after pi and those of you who are not familiar with it will find its
value of its first six digits is 2.71828… very unimpressive.
In fact it is so unremarkable that unless
you have an innate love for numbers or you have a rock-etching memory, you may
need some kind of mnemonic to recall it in future.
I
recommend this following American mnemonic that works for at least its first
six digits:
“By omnibus I travelled to Brooklyn”.
I understand that both the chief nouns in
the sentence, ‘omnibus’ and ‘Brooklyn’ does sound unfamiliar to most non north-Americans,
but then if you have patience you should be able to figure out a mnemonic that
might be more appealing and familiar to you.
As compared to the number pi, the number e
is a relative new comer.
We see the first hint of the number e in
the work of John Napier of 1618 as he worked on the logarithmic tables.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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