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Why is Euler's number an uppercase "E" and not a lowercase "e"?

Isn't Euler's Number normally expressed with a lowercase "e"?

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6  
All MM-defined symbols start with uppercase – belisarius Sep 11 '12 at 6:37
2  
No need to downvote, guys. – belisarius Sep 11 '12 at 6:39
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You can also typeset it with Esc + ee + Esc... – Yves Klett Sep 11 '12 at 8:07
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...or enter \[ExponentialE] directly. – J. M.♦ Sep 11 '12 at 8:40
And note that the 'e' you obtain from Esc + ee + Esc or from \[ExponentialE] has a doubled stroke on its left, as do the corresponding symbols from \[ImaginaryI] and [\DifferentialD] -- akin to the "blackboard bold" font commonly used in typesetting mathematical documents (e.g., with LaTeX). – murray Sep 12 '12 at 15:07

1 Answer

up vote 8 down vote accepted

As often happens here, the comment provides the answer, but here's the answer from Stephen Wolfram's book about Mathematica (the second edition of "Mathematica, a System for Doing Mathematics by Computer" which I bought for £0.01 on Amazon):

Mathematica uses both upper- and lower-case letters. There is a convention that built-in Mathematica objects always have names starting with upper-case (capital) letters. To avoid confusion, you should always choose names for your own variables that start with lower-case letters.

This means that you can use e, i, n, or even sin or pi for your own variables without conflicting with Mathematica's constants and functions.

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Closed? "We expect answers to be supported by facts, references, or specific expertise, but this question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion." you're joking, surely... :) – cormullion Sep 11 '12 at 15:34
I agree, your answer clearly involves a fact. Reopened the question. It seemed to be close to being reopened anyway. – Sjoerd C. de Vries Sep 11 '12 at 19:20
@SjoerdC.deVries Thanks, I wouldn't have bothered, but this was the first question I've been able to answer for ages :) – cormullion Sep 11 '12 at 19:33
Just to explain my vote, I saw this from the review page which does not show the answers. So only the question, which was not really a serious/useful one, was shown with 4 close votes already. Also, the comments seemed to have explained it well, so I cast the final vote. Probably wouldn't have voted had I seen your answer, but someone else would've cast the final one :) – rm -rf♦ Sep 11 '12 at 21:46
@R.M No worries - I'm just being curmudgeonly today... It wasn't much of a question, true, but then it's no worse than this one :) – cormullion Sep 11 '12 at 22:25

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