Slashdot Mirror
Greatest Equations Ever
sgant writes "What is your favorite equation? This was the question asked by Physics World in a recent poll. This is also covered in a New York Times article about the same poll. Some of the equations mentioned were the simplistic 1+1=2 and Euler's equation, ei + 1 = 0. What are some of your favorite equations?"
thats buttsex for those of you who dont know how to write an integral
"What is your favorite equation? ..."
Shashdot has already covered this in a poll! We all already know that E=mc^2 is the overall favorite, closely followed by F=ma.
http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=804
I think your favorite equation should be E^2=m^2c^4+p^2c^2.
Nah?
It combines the 5 most important numbers in all of mathematics into a single formula.
It's also got the other important mathematical concepts - exponentiation (i.e. raising something to the power of something else), multiplication, addition and equals. Essentially, it's a huge nugget of maths in a tidy little wrapper.
I've got an old Sharp graphics calculator, which has both proper notation layout and a complex numbers mode. I still like keying in the 'e^(pi*i)+1', pressing 'Enter', then getting the zero, all perfectly laid out on a little LCD display...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
There's a difference between "Euler's formula" and "Euler's Formula", depending on whether you're referring to one of his formulae or the specific formula called "Euler's Formula".
Guy created so many darn formulae that "Euler's formula" is ambiguous.
It's actually E^2 = (m^2 * c^4) + (p^2 * c^2)
More like: E^2 = (m0^2 * c^4) + (p^2 * c^2)
m0 is defined as the mass at rest (v = 0). If you substitute m = m0 / sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2), you can rework that to E = mc^2. And, if v = 0, you get E0 = m0c^2, the "energy at rest" of an object.
I agree with the original poster, the full version is much more useful than the E = mc^2 form. The short form hides one of the most important conclusions of relativity theory: that mass is a function of speed.
WWTTD?
It was my mistake in the original posting. Not the article from Physics world, as I couldn't put in special characters.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
The answer is simple. The most beautiful equations, hands down, are those from which all of mathematics can be derived. These are the axioms of ZFC set theory. What could possibly be more beautiful or more important than that? And it's a shame so few people know about them. See Zermelo-Fraenkel Axioms and Metamath Proof Explorer.
- Albert Einstein, Sidelights on Relativity
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.