厳密にネイピア数そのものを見い出したのはヤコブ・ベルヌーイと言われており、複利の計算で lim n→∞ (1+1/n)^n. を求めようとした。これは e に等しくなる。
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(mathematical_constant) e (mathematical constant)
History The first references to the constant were published in 1618 in the table of an appendix of a work on logarithms by John Napier. However, this did not contain the constant itself, but simply a list of logarithms to the base e. It is assumed that the table was written by William Oughtred.[3]
The discovery of the constant itself is credited to Jacob Bernoulli in 1683,[8][9] the following expression (which is equal to e): lim n→∞ (1+1/n)^n. The first known use of the constant, represented by the letter b, was in correspondence from Gottfried Leibniz to Christiaan Huygens in 1690 and 1691.[10] Leonhard Euler introduced the letter e as the base for natural logarithms, writing in a letter to Christian Goldbach on 25 November 1731.[11][12] Euler started to use the letter e for the constant in 1727 or 1728, in an unpublished paper on explosive forces in cannons,[13] while the first appearance of e in publication was in Euler's Mechanica (1736).[14] Although some researchers used the letter c in the subsequent years, the letter e was more common and eventually became standard. (引用終り) 以上
