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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?"

4 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Mine by ClamIAm · · Score: 5, Funny

    1 = 2

    wait

  2. Girls are Evil by DeltaHat · · Score: 5, Funny

    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

  3. 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.

  4. Emmy Noether! by Quadraginta · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.