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Before I post my final recap I wanted to write a little about our table numbers. My hubby wrote about them on his blog Math Goes Pop! and so I thought I would share as well.

As I may have mentioned, my husband is a mathematician, and so I wanted to do something that reflected this in our table numbers. I asked him to come up with 10 mathematically significant numbers or symbols and we used these for the table numbers. We used the Ikea double sided Tolsby frames so that one side had the number and the other had a description of that number along with table exercises! That way no one had to do any actual math to find their table (unless they wanted to).

We used stones written with our guests’ names and the table number instead of escort cards. At the end of the night our guests left their stones in a basket for Matt and I to use in our garden.

For example, one of the table numbers was “e” with this description on the back:

e, a.k.a. Euler’s number, a.k.a. Napier’s Constant, is an irrational number of fundamental importance. While it lacks the general public awareness of a number like $\pi$, I assure you it is no less charming. Typically defined as the limit       $e:=\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\left(1+\frac{1}{n}\right)^{n},$ e enjoys many other identities, including

$e=1+\frac{1}{1!}+\frac{1}{2!}+\frac{1}{3!}+\frac{1}{4!}+\ldots,$

and

$e=\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty}\frac{n}{\sqrt[n]{n!}}.$

e also determines the base of the exponential function $e^{x}$, unique among all exponential functions in the study of calculus because it is equal to its own derivative.

Table exercises!

1. Use one of the identities above to verify that e < 3.

2. Use one of the identities above to verify that e is irrational, i.e. that it cannot be written as a ratio p/q where p and q are integers.

3. Suppose each of you has brought a hat to this wedding. Everyone leaves his or her hat inside, and when a person leaves, he can’t be bothered to search for the hat he brought, and simply takes one from the hat pile at random. Show that the probability nobody ends up with the hat they came in with tends to 1/e as the number of people increases.

You can see all the table numbers over at my hubby’s blog. I hope I haven’t bored you all, just wanted to share a fun way we tried to make a detail feel like “us” 🙂 Did you do anything like this with your table numbers?