Predictably Irrational Predictably Irrational Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions is a 2008 book by Dan Ariely, in which he challenges readers' assumptions about making decisions based on rational thought. Ariely explains, "My goal, by the end of this book, is to help you fundamentally rethink what makes you and the people around you tick. I hope to lead you there by presenting a wide range of scientific experiments, findings, and anecdotes that are in many cases quite amusing. Once you see how systematic certain mistakes are—how we repeat them again and again—I think you will begin to learn
Proof that e is irrational Proof that e is irrational The number "e" was introduced by Jacob Bernoulli in 1683. More than half a century later, Euler, who had been a student of Jacob's younger brother Johann, proved that "e" is irrational; that is, that it cannot be expressed as the quotient of two integers. Euler wrote the first proof of the fact that "e" is irrational in 1737 (but the text was only published seven years later). He computed the representation of "e" as a simple continued fraction, which is Since this continued fraction is infinite and every rational number has a terminating continued