Ian Stewart described e: The Story of a Number by Eli Maor as “gently
paced, elegantly composed” in 91av, 18 June 1994, p 43. So what’s this
e then? Well, it’s not a friend-to-the-Universe drug, it’s a number, a constant
as deeply embedded in the world around us as is p. It describes the shapes of
spirals, volumes shaped by curves and turns up in logarithms, the interest on
your bank account. Try it. Published by Princeton, £11.95, ISBN
0691058547.
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