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The World's Most Beautiful Equations?
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?"
Much overrated as an equation. c is just a constant (and in sensible units c=1) so all it really says is that E=constant*m. This is hardly the stuff of mathematical wet dreams, even if the fact that it's true does have some interest for physicists.
1 = 2
wait
$ = (size of lie x price of product x number of suckers x number of PCs x number of years of great products) - (cost of legal defense + cost of penalties + cost of political contributions + cost of Bill's house + cost of Indian programming labor) + K,
where K = a factor I shall explain but you have to pay me first.
A proof more than a formula:
We all know that girls require time and money, so
Girls = Time x Money
We also know that time is money, so
Time = Money
Therefore,
Girls = Money x Money = Money ^ 2
Furthermore, it is commonly known that money is the root of all evil, so
Money = sqrt(Evil)
Therefore,
Girls = (sqrt(Evil))^2 = Evil
Hence,
Girls = Evil
42
I win!
Lump lingered last in line for brains, and the ones she got were sorta rotten and insane.
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.
Can't believe no one mentioned Noether's Theorem, so I'll submit it. Proof that the existence of any symmetry in a Lagrangian implies a conserved quantity.
Hence, the fact that force laws do not change with time implies conservation of energy, that they do not change with position implies conservation of linear momentum, and that they do not change with rotation implies conservation of angular momentum. Highly awesome.