History
The first mention of the natural logarithm was by Nicholas Mercator in his work Logarithmotechnia published in 1668, although the mathematics teacher John Speidell had already in 1619 compiled a table on the natural logarithm. It was formerly also called hyperbolic logarithm, as it corresponds to the area under a hyperbola. It is also sometimes referred to as the Napierian logarithm, although the original meaning of this term is slightly different.
Read more about this topic: Natural Logarithm
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“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)