E853 -- Meditatio in experimenta explosione tormentorum nuper instituta

(Meditation on experiments made recently on the firing of cannon)

Summary:

E853 has achieved lasting fame in mathematical footnote history by being the first printed source in which e is used to represent the base of the natural logarithm. Euler wrote this paper at the end of 1727 or at the beginning of 1728, when he was just 21 years old, describing seven experiments performed between August 21 and September 2, 1727.

Publication:

Originally published in Opera Postuma 2, 1862, pp. 800-804
Opera Omnia: Series 2, Volume 14, pp. 468 - 477

Documents Available:

Original publication: E853
A translation of selections of E853 by Professor Florian Cajori, U.C. Berkeley, is published in Smith's Source Book in Mathematics (1929, McGraw-Hill), pp. 95-99

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