Wow! Thank you for your engagement and enthusiasm for such a topic.

I cheated a little and went straight to Wolfram Alpha to check out your number. :)

The '19 seconds' that I reported in the original essay was for the function: simga of (1/n!) for n=0 to n= 69. I modified your code accordingly (with my poor coding skills), and got the following output (on my relatively powerful PC):

CODE:

from sympy import factorial

from datetime import datetime

t0 = datetime.now()

R=0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

#n = 69

for i in range(0,69):

R += (1/factorial(i))

#R = factorial(n)

t1 = datetime.now()

with open('69f.txt','w') as f:

f.write(str(R))

f.close()

print('R: ' + (str(R)))

print ('time = %.2f mu-s' % (t1-t0).microseconds)

OUTPUT:

R: 2.71828182845905

time = 17951.00 mu-s

Would it be possible for you to run the same (or similar) code, and report your numbers along with your machine's (rough) configuration?

I'd like to quote your comment(s) in the original article, and credit you for your engagement. Such "silly" enthusiasm for such "silly" topics should be shared! :)