• Question: What is your favourite equation in science? Mine would either be PV=nRT or e^ix = cosx+isinx.

    Asked by eigenvector to Arttu, Ceri, James_M, Monica, Philip on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Philip Dolan

      Philip Dolan answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      e^(i * pi) = -1 is pretty remarkable I always thought.

    • Photo: Arttu Rajantie

      Arttu Rajantie answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      My favourite is Z= integral exp(iS). Here S is a quantity called action. This is the central equation in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. It is much more elegant than the conventional formulation in terms of wave functions and can also be applied to many more systems. In principle, if you know the action S, then you can calculate everything from that equation.

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