'Pretty' equation
 

I've bought my brother a large blackboard for his birthday; it's to go in his room for 'stuff'. However he'd talked about getting it decorated and at the moment is keen on having some sort of equation (in paint) down the side or along the top.

Does anyone have any suggestions of pretty/artistic equations? Personally I'm quite a fan of integrals (the symbol at least) but open to all suggestions. I think he's considering a 'beautiful mind' type angle.

ps he's a linguist and doesn't know maths so this is artistic merit only :)

Two things:

First of all, holy search engine optimization! Of 1,000,000 pages for 'pretty equation', this comes up third in google!

Second, check wikipedia for natural laws. Here's two good sources:

Laws of science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (some basic fundamental equations that most people with undergraduate science education would recognize)

For some 'prettier' equations, check:

Noether's theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Noether's theorem equations has some artistic elegance to me, because they are different ways of stating some natural laws, to allow for more variability. So, they're not mathematical operations as much as descriptions of the natural world. :)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/8/2...99da24a796.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/math/e/4...6474550022.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/math/4/7...418c707260.pnghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/math/2/5...88ad0fd589.png

Or you could always write a DNA formula. What was it, some billion characters long?

What about Saussure's "formula" for the sign (semiotics)?

http://www8.georgetown.edu/centers/c...re_sign002.gif

It has pictures and words!

Thanks for the ideas! There's loads on the wikipedia page with pretty Greek symbols and integrals (he likes Greek).

LoganSnake - what's yours the formula for?

The Saussure idea's good too - he's studying linguistics himself so probably familiar with it (might be a crappy cartoon tree by the time I've finished painting it though :) )

aphex twin - ΔMi−1 = −αΣn=1NDi[n][Σj∈C{i}Fij[n − 1] + Fexti[n−1]]

Simpson's diversity index
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/c/d...ec5538d5e2.png
/biology nerd

The Ampere-Maxwell equation in integral form. Ampère's circuital law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's a solution to a fractional calculus question using a Laplace transform.

I'd consider Maxwells equations, or the Schrodinger equation. These describe electromagnetism (eg light) and quantum mechnics respectively. Good important stuff.

Maxwell's equations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Schrödinger equation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'd thought of Maxwell myself but couldn't think of a 'pretty' way to do it. Schrodinger looks good; and I think my brother would appreciate a story with cats in it :)

I'll print out a few and see how they might go round/on the board.

Schrodingers Wave Equation