Check out this very helpful explanation of what an irrational number is. He just emailed it to me to aid my understanding of the number "e":
"An irrational number is one that cannot be written as a ratio of two integers. 1/2 is rational. Pi, e, and the square root of two are not.
They used to only have integers way back in the day. 1, 2, 3, etc. Then at some point somebody invented fractions and then you could have numbers like 1/2. People thought that all numbers were 'rational', that is, could be written in the form of a 'ratio'. But then the Greeks ran into a big problem: The Pythagorean Theorum. What is the length of the diagonal of a square with sides of length 1? The answer is "the square root of two." We now know that the square root of 2 is irrational, but those dudes spent years and years trying to find out the right ratio that would equal the square root of two. But they never could."
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2 comments:
Uh, Hello?!? I've identified your first problem here, Rebecca. See, "e" is not actually a number. It's a letter. Comes right after "d", but before "f". I haven't taken a math class since junior year in high school, and even I can tell you that. Are we going to have to start renting Sesame Street on DVD?
e isn't a letter man, it's a way of life! when the music is swirling around you and all the beautiful people are dancing with lightsticks, and then the beat drops in and that dude is all "zombie. zombie. zombie. zombie na-tion", that's when you're really alive for the first time man! I love everyone!
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