This section has the following videos:
- Lesson Video
- Example Set A Practice Problems (Video Solutions)
- Example Set B Practice Problems (Video Solutions)
- Example Set C Practice Problems (Video Solutions)
- Example Set D Practice Problems (Video Solutions)
In this lesson I will teach you about the natural base e. Recall that a power is comprised of a base and an exponent. For example in the power “10 squared” 10 is the base and 2 is the exponent. So in this lesson we will look at a special number that is used as a base with respect to powers and logarithms. The number is represented by the variable “e” and has a value of a little of over 2.7. The reason we use the variable “e” to represent the value is that Euler (a famous mathematician) founded the number. What makes the value of e so important is it has amazing accuracy to mathematically model a situation. The reason we call it the “natural” base e is the situations that the base helps us model are things like population growth or radio active decay- naturally occurring events. As you will see this lesson will also tie into our study of natural logs- logarithms that have the number e as it’s base. Just to be clear you will need a scientific calculator to explore and learn the topic.