Arriving at e: a physical approach using the decay of charge in an RC circuit

摘要

This paper demonstrates how the transcendental number e may be arrived at by observing the discharge of a capacitor through a fixed resistor and then modelling the system using a simple step-wise procedure. The experimental phase makes use of the Arduino microcontroller, while simple modelling of the system is carried out by means of SMath Studio software, leading finally to the exponential number and the well-known exponential function for the decay process.