I was so excited the first time I read Ian Stewart’s book entitled “The 17 equations that changed the world“. The book is written in simple and easy to understand language with interesting practical examples for applications. I immediately wrote to Ian Stewart requesting if I could reproduce his work in form of posters in both English and French to be used at AIMS-IMAGINARY in Senegal in 2015 (see here). I remember his only reply was “please proceed but I won’t be able to attend since I have prior committments”. Business Insider published a list of these equations emphasing further how intuitive they are (see here). I do strongly believe every school in the world be it elementary, college, secondary, technical, university, you name it, should have these posted up or painted on the walls of their science departments/offices, classrooms, laboratories etc; in all langauges applicable. This way, the learners will appreciate mathematics and science more.
The 17 equations that changed the world
About the Author: Michael Kateregga
PhD Student at the University of Cape Town; Researcher at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
Which are your top five? Which do you think is the most beautiful?
Well being a financial mathematician, I would go for 17, 7, 8, 3 and 9 as my best and top five equations. Moreover, I think 17 is the most beautiful among the 17 equations that changed the world.
Haven’t finished reading it, but it’s great. The chapter on Pythagoras alone was very insightful.