• Question: Whats your favourite equation?:D

    Asked by falak to Ben, Jony, Katharine, Mark, Peter on 19 Nov 2011.
    • Photo: Katharine Schofield

      Katharine Schofield answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      The Dirac equation. Predicted the existence of antimatter. That’s pretty cool.

    • Photo: Ben Still

      Ben Still answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      Has to be the Schrödinger equation, the starting point for everyone studying quantum mechanics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger_equation

    • Photo: Mark Basham

      Mark Basham answered on 16 Nov 2011:

      Ah the good old Lorenz Equations for this one (3 equations not one but i’m feeling greedy)
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_attractor
      They make the best pictures by far 🙂

    • Photo: Jony Hudson

      Jony Hudson answered on 18 Nov 2011:

      Not exactly a single equation, but I’d go with Noether’s theorem.

      It’s the most amazing thing that links symmetry (like the fact that it doesn’t matter where you do the experiment in space) with conserved quantities (in this case, that momentum is conserved). It’s the basic idea behind of all modern fundamental physics.

      There’s a wikipedia page on it, but it’s a bit technical:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether_charge

    • Photo: Peter Williams

      Peter Williams answered on 19 Nov 2011:

      grrr, they’ve picked all the good ones.

      ok – it’s a cliche, but einstein’s mass-energy equivalence is good. it means we can generate energy from the atomic nucleus.

      i’m still utterly amazed by it. all you do is dig up some heavy metal (uranium) from the ground and bring them together and they heat up spontaneously. just like the magic rocks in indiana jones.

      Look up the Oklo natural nuclear fission reactor.

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