Share your favourite Constant and associated formula.
I know it’s probably too easy and totally not essoteric but I’ll have to go with pi (22/7).
Formuli: Surface Area = 4(pi)r2
Volume = 4/3(pi)r3
*yeah, feelin’ kinda dorky tonight.
Avogadro’s number: 6.023 x 10[sup]23[/sup]
It’s one of the few things I remember from school chemistry.
As a chemist, I should probably choose Avogardro’s number. But I’m not. I’m thinking something more along the lines of Planck’s constant.
e, and with it the associated formula A=Pe[sup]rt[/sup]
[symbol]w[/symbol], the probability that a randomly chosen computer program will halt on a randomly chosen input. The beautiful thing about it is that there’s no way to know whether the nth bit of [symbol]w[/symbol] is 0 or 1 without taking its value as an axiom.
Does A2 +B2 =C2 count?
Okay, as long as you don’t hold the irrational belief that pi is exactly 22/7.
I’m gonna go with gamma, a.k.a. Euler’s constant.
Planck’s Constant. Mostly because of physics class: the teacher put some equation on the board (that included it) and asked what we would do to increase the final result. I raised my hand and said we should increase Planck’s Constant.
I’m also a fan of Euler’s Formula: e^(i(pi)) + 1 = 0
Chemistry was a long time ago, but R. As in, PV = nRT. Pee Vee Nert.
I was going to say this! I’m especially fond the continuous compounding formula, although I know it as FV = Pe[sup]rt[/sup].
<sigh, I love math>
…but the Bible says that pi = 3, exactly… what? No, honest, there are a couple places where it says a particular vessel was built 7 cubits across and 21 cubits around (or something like that.)
Anyhow, everyone knows that 355/113 is a lot closer to pi than 22/7, right?
That said, I’m going to put in a good word for the Fibonacci series.
Oh, and fractals. Cool and more cool, down to the tiniest detail.
e, as immortalised by what Feynman called “the jewel of mathematics”, this equation:
e^(i * pi) + 1 = 0
If you feel like you don’t know enough to make a decision, learn about some mathematical and physical constants…
Personally, I think phi, the “golden ratio” is pretty cool. It’s like a little acrobat that can twist itself up in strange ways. Pi is too popular to be my favorite, I can’t just follow the crowd.
As for physical constants, I really like the sound of “epsilon-nought” even though my physics teacher always calls it “e-zero” (which pisses me off slightly because it’s not actually an e, it’s an epsilon) By the way, there are far too many things that are the letter e, or something similar. There’s e=2.71828…, E for electric field, epsilon-nought, capital epsilon for emf, E for energy, and probably something else I’m forgetting. And don’t even get me started on volume, velocity, and voltage.
Um, Sorry for the hijack.
Men will be stupid. Women will be crazy.
Constant as anything else here.
I’m a fan of Graham’s Number. It’s pretty big.
There’s also Legendre’s Constant. A rather fancy name for what is ultimately 1.
That’s another one I like (if anyone’s interested, it’s also called Chaitin’s constant, which is a bit more googleable). Why settle for a constant that’s merely transcendental when you can pick one that’s uncomputable? I’d like to go a step further and pick an undefinable constant. It should be an easy task, since there are “infinitely more” undefinable numbers than definable ones, but oddly enough nobody seems to have defined any.
I was gonna pick Chaitin’s constant, but it’s no fun being third.
So I will pick my next favourite constant.
8.5
I came to say squared a + squared b equals sqaured c, but it was done. So I got nothing.
I read the thread title as ‘consonant’, and I was all ready to read some phonemic geekery and support the /ch/ in ‘loch’ and ‘TeX’.
Oh, well.
I like 1729, myself. It isn’t useful, it doesn’t have to be, it’s just neat.
I also like 39 for this reason:
This one isn’t a true constant. But I very definitely remember reading in a math textbook that Beta was a constant, which would express the ratio of ‘diagonal to perimeter’ in a rectangle. Never been able to find that book, but I do wonder if it was supposed to be a critical thinking exercise or something. Of course, I didn’t realize why it was false until a long time later. (Partly because it seemed to fit so nicely with the derivation of pi.)
[sub]of course, depending on the proportions of the rectangle, that ratio can range anywhere from the square root of one-eighth, (just over 0.35) to approach 0.5 but never actually reach it without the rectangle turning into a line.[/sub]
Yes, that’s the one.
Two irrationals, one imaginary number and it all rounds off perfectly?! :eek:
(I think this was Euler?)