Well, for me this post is the only one that made sence and thanks to it I now have a clear understanding what e is. "e is the function which is its own derivative" is way less intuitive.
Perhaps this would be more intuitive if shown graphically. Something like; draw a curve where the gradient is the value. As the value goes up, so does the gradient, so does the value and so on. What you have drawn, e^x is the function where the value is the gradient - exponential growth.
Thanks for this - this is exactly how you would say it to someone who doesn't know what a derivative is. Apologies for assuming anyone interested in this would know calculus - poor form indeed! Explaining in terms of derivatives definitely isn't simple if you don't know what a derivative is.
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Well, for me this post is the only one that made sence and thanks to it I now have a clear understanding what e is. "e is the function which is its own derivative" is way less intuitive.
Perhaps this would be more intuitive if shown graphically. Something like; draw a curve where the gradient is the value. As the value goes up, so does the gradient, so does the value and so on. What you have drawn, e^x is the function where the value is the gradient - exponential growth.
Thanks for this - this is exactly how you would say it to someone who doesn't know what a derivative is. Apologies for assuming anyone interested in this would know calculus - poor form indeed! Explaining in terms of derivatives definitely isn't simple if you don't know what a derivative is.
That sounds pretty damn intuitive. Just imagining the drawing you're describing has given me some insight.