Comment on Bernoulli discovered e by studying a question about compound interestparentComments−evanb13yIt would be e if there had been a + sign in the parens, but with a - it is, in fact, 1/e. (1-1/n) is always less than 1; multiplying a bunch of factors less than 1 can't possibly* give you 2.something.*without somehow wrapping around infinity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%2B_2_%2B_3_%2B_4_%2B_%E2%80%...−alecst13yMy mistake, didn't notice the minus sign...
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It would be e if there had been a + sign in the parens, but with a - it is, in fact, 1/e. (1-1/n) is always less than 1; multiplying a bunch of factors less than 1 can't possibly* give you 2.something.
*without somehow wrapping around infinity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%2B_2_%2B_3_%2B_4_%2B_%E2%80%...
My mistake, didn't notice the minus sign...