Euler number
The Euler numbers are a sequence En of integers defined by the following Taylor series expansion:
(Note that
e, the
base of the natural logarithm, is also occasionally called
Euler's number, as is the
Euler characteristic.)
The odd-indexed Euler numbers are all zero. The even-indexed ones have alternating signs. Some values are:
- E0 = 1
- E2 = -1
- E4 = 5
- E6 = -61
- E8 = 1,385
- E10 = -50,521
- E12 = 2,702,765
- E14 = -199,360,981
- E16 = 19,391,512,145
- E18 = -2,404,879,675,441
Some authors re-index the sequence in order to omit the odd-numbered Euler numbers with value zero, and/or change all signs to positive. This encyclopedia adheres to the convention adopted above.
The Euler numbers appear in the Taylor series expansion of the secant trigonometric function, and they also occur in combinatorics.