It is an irrational number that is not a root, in any degree, of any rational number (Charles Hermite found this in 1873). Modern computers have worked out the value to 60,000 places. The quanity e was the first nonalgebraic number to be discovered and is an example of a "transcendental number."






Illustration: e= 2.718281828459042353602874...






Reference: Realm of Algebra