Math 1B: Calculus Fall 2020

Project 6 (001): Irrationality of e

Instructor: Alexander Paulin

Student Name and ID :

The ability to represent familiar functions as power series has the potential to reveal remarkable hidden
structure.
One of the most surprising examples is that of the exponential function with natural base e. It turns out
that ex admits the following power series representation (centered at 0):

∞
x2 x3 X xn
ex = 1 + x + + + ··· =
2! 3! n=0
n!
Amazingly this representation holds for all x in the real numbers. For the purposes of this project we will
take this as a fact. It will be proven elsewhere in the course.
In this project we will use this amazing power series representation to prove that the number e is irrational,
meaning it is not equal to the ratio of two integers.

1
2 Project 6 (001)

For the reminder of the project let us assume that e is rational, i.e. there exist positive whole
numbers a and b, such that e = ab .

1. a) Prove that b!e is an integer.

Solution:

b!
b) Prove that for n, a non-negative whole number such that n ≤ b, n! is an integer.
Solution:

c) Using the power series on the front page, express e as an infinite series.
Solution:
Project 6 (001) 3

2. a) Prove that, under the assumption e = a/b, the infinite series

∞
X b!
n!
n=b+1

is an integer.
Solution:

b) Find a geometric series which is an upper bound for the series in 2a).
1
Hint: 0 < c < d ⇒ cd < c12 .
Solution:
4 Project 6 (001)

3. a) Using the results of 2b), prove that

∞
X b!
0< < 1.
n!
n=b+1

Solution:

b) Prove that e is irrational.

Solution: