English

The transcendence of $\mathrm{e}$ via formal power series

Number Theory 2026-05-15 v8

Abstract

We review Hilbert's classical analytical proof of the transcendence of the number e\mathrm{e}. Then, we show how this result can be obtained algebraically by means of formal power series (FPS). We give two proofs of the transcendence of e\mathrm{e} based on FPS. The first of them is a specialization of the 1990 proof by Beukers, B\'ezivin and Robba of the Lindemann-Weierstrass theorem. The second proof is due to this author and is an adaptation of Hilbert's argument to FPS.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.01019,
  title  = {The transcendence of $\mathrm{e}$ via formal power series},
  author = {Martin Klazar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.01019},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

15 pages, new intro, computations better explained