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The World's Most Beautiful Equations?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the aesthetics-and-mathematical-elegance dept.

music4l numb3rs asks: "'An exhibition of the world's most beautiful equations...and some of the ugliest ones too' is how the artist Justin Mullins describes his upcoming show in London. He's exhibiting a number of old favourites such as Maxwell's equations and Euler's relation plus some I've not come across such as entanglement. As for ugliness, he points to the four color theorem. My question to contemplate over the holiday period is: what do Slashdot readers think are the most beautiful equations, and the most ugly ones too?"

9 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Does it really matter? by GoofyBoy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I looked at the Four-colour graph and found it .. beautiful.

    From an infinate number of maps to 633 maps. The graph its like browsing through freshmeat or Wikipedia and discovering a world of variety and viewpoints. (sorry it reality does not meet some your expectations of a more "beautiful" number such as 0, 1 or 1,000)

    Ugly? I find the the simple formulas. Try explaing what these mean to a child without resorting to "Its because its by definition..." (eg. ALEPH ONE) or having to explain some really complex background on the subject (STARBIRTH, what does pi have to do with this? What is with using the Boltzmann constant?).

    --
    The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
  2. This has been asked before... by emplynx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Basically on this post. Well, that post asked users favorite equations, not necessarily beautiful. That leads to another interesting question - are your favorite equation and your most beautiful equation the same thing? I just finished a semester of Electrity and Magnetism, and I'm a big fan of Maxwell's eqastions now.

    --
    -Tim
  3. Re:e^(i*pi) = -1 by confusion+here · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I prefer the actual Euler's formula instead of the special case. e^x = cosx+jsinx

  4. 1 = 2... by Luigi30 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    a = b a^2 = ab a^2 - b^2 = ab - b^2 (a-b)(a+b) = b(a-b) a + b = b b + b = b 2b = b 2 = 1

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    503 Sig Unavailable

    The Signature could not be accessed. Please try again later or contact the administrator
  5. Re:e^(i*pi) = -1 by confusion+here · · Score: 2, Interesting

    e^jx that is. I should learn to preview.

  6. Re:e^(i*pi) = -1 by iced_773 · · Score: 5, Interesting


    No no no.

    e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0

    There. Fixed your equation. Now it contains all five principal numbers: e, i, pi, 1, and 0.

  7. What about chemistry by hvnerd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Combustion of propane and oxygen.
    CH4 + 2O2 --> CO2 + 2H2O

    --
    "It is not a dream, It is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive...blind faint-hearted, doub
  8. 1+3+3=7 by Agilo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sorry if already said, but: 1+3+3=7

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    - Agilo
  9. Lagrange's Theorem by siwelwerd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Not an equation, but I find Lagranges Theorem (If H is a subgroup of G, then the order of H divides the order of G) to be beautiful in that it is not very obvious at first why this should be true.