cliche

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

__________________
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. -- John Cage (1912 - 1992)

telekinetic

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.

LoganSnake

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

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Baraka_Guru

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



It has pictures and words!

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

kutulu

cliche

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 )

__________________
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. -- John Cage (1912 - 1992)

lotsofmagnets

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

__________________
mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor.
she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron.
physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

inBOIL

Simpson's diversity index

/biology nerd

__________________
And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

aKula

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

__________________
"I am the wrath of God. The earth I pass will see me and tremble." -Klaus Kinski as Don Lope de Aguirre

inBOIL

__________________
And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

LoganSnake

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

__________________
Maturity is knowing you were an idiot in the past. Wisdom is knowing that you'll be an idiot in the future. Common sense is knowing that you should try not to be an idiot now. - J. Jacques

Nimetic

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

cliche

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.

__________________
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. -- John Cage (1912 - 1992)

Slims

Schrodingers Wave Equation

Attached Images

ae329a.jpg (9.1 KB, 55 views)

__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence