Ten greatest formulas in physics

The British scientific journal Physical World once asked readers to vote for the "greatest formula" and finally made the list of ten famous formulas. I have sorted out the relevant knowledge here, so come and study!

the ten greatest formulas in physics

No.1 formula for the circumference of a circle

Founder: ancients

Meaning: mathematical expression of the beauty of nature.

This formula is awesome, and I have learned it since junior high school. At present, human beings have been able to get the precision of 26.1 billion bits of pi. Still pretty boring. More than a dozen-pi values used in modern science and technology are enough. If we use the value of-pi with 35-bit precision to calculate the circumference of a circle that can enclose the solar system, the error is less than one millionth of the proton diameter. Nowadays, people calculate pi mostly to verify the computing power of computers, and also for interest.

No.9 Fourier transform

Founder: Jean? Baptiste? Joseph? Fourier

Meaning: Any irregular signal can be expressed as infinite superposition of regular sine waves. It is an important method in the field of digital signal processing.

this is quite professional, and most people don't understand it at all. Not much to explain. In short, there is no electronic computer today without this formula, so you can thank the party and the government for surfing the Internet here, and also thank this formula that you can't understand at all. In addition, although Fourier's surname is Fu, he is French.

excuse me? Baptiste? Joseph? Fourier

No.8 De Broglie equations

Founder: Louis? Victor? De Broglie

Meaning: De Broglie believes that any substance has both particle and fluctuation, or that any substance can also be regarded as a wave, including people themselves. Man not only exists as a substance, but also is a wave in a sense.

This thing is also quite awesome. If you learn optics from physics in high school, many concepts are related to it. In short, De Broglie thinks that an electron is not only a particle, but also a wave, and it has a "wavelength". So we got this equation of matter wave, which expressed the relationship between wavelength, energy and so on. At the same time, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1929.

Louis? Victor? De Broglie

No.7 1+1=2

This formula needs no name, translation or explanation.

No.6 Schrodinger equation

Founder: elwin? Schrodinger

significance: in quantum mechanics, the state of an object can not be described by displacement, velocity, etc. as in classical mechanics, but only by a function of a physical quantity, which is no longer a certain value, but a probability distributed with time, and every microscopic system has a corresponding Schrodinger equation. The significance of Schrodinger equation in quantum mechanics is the same as that of Newton's second law in classical mechanics.

it's also completely incomprehensible to ordinary people. Therefore, I extract the official evaluation: "Schrodinger equation is the most widely used and influential formula in the world atomic physics literature." For his outstanding contribution to quantum mechanics, Schrodinger won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933.

Besides, although Schrodinger's surname is Xue, he is Austrian.

elwin? Schrodinger

No.5 mass-energy equation

Founder: Albert? Einstein

significance: the mass-energy equation profoundly reveals the relationship between mass and energy. Before that, people undoubtedly thought that mass is mass and energy is energy, and there is no connection between them. It was the discovery of the mass-energy equation that led to the explosion of atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs. More importantly, this equation completely subverts the inherent thinking of human beings and promotes the progress of human civilization.

It seems that there has never been a scientific formula with such a broad meaning. In the "miracle year" of physics in 195, it was proposed by a young man named Einstein. In the same year, he also published on electrodynamics of moving bodies? Commonly known as special relativity.

This formula tells us that Einstein is awesome, and energy and mass are interchangeable.

Albert? Einstein

No.4 Pythagorean Theorem/Pythagorean Theorem

Founder: Pythagorean (some people think that Pythagorean Theorem appeared in Shang Dynasty in China and proved it)

Meaning: Pythagorean Theorem is a typical method to solve graphic problems by mathematical methods, and there are more than 4 kinds of proof forms at present. Hook three strands, four strings and five is so deep into the hearts of everyone on earth.

it's impossible to do math without using it. I won't talk much.

Pythagoras

No.3 Newton's second law

Founder: Isaac? Newton

significance: Newton's second law is the core of classical physics, which applies to all aspects of our daily life and marks the beginning of real physics research. Without Newton, human civilization would spend a longer time in the dark world.

One of the greatest scientists in history is regarded as one of the greatest core laws in classical physics in the greatest scientific masterpiece Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. All the basic equations of power can be derived from it through calculus. For those who have studied physics in high school, there is nothing to say.

founder: Isaac? Newton

No.2 Euler formula

Founder: Leonhard? Euler

significance: many formulas in mathematics were discovered by Euler, so Euler formula is not a single formula, and Euler formula is widely distributed in all branches of mathematics. Charles Kleiber, Secretary of State for Education and Research of Switzerland, once said: "Without many scientific discoveries of Euler, we would live a completely different life today." French mathematician Laplace thinks: read Euler, he is everyone's teacher.

was this formula written by god? In the last few places, the creators are all gods. Euler is the most prolific mathematician in history and a scholar with the most works in various fields (including all branches of mathematics and mechanics, optics, acoustics, water conservancy, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, etc.). In the history of mathematics, the 18th century is called "Euler era". Born in Switzerland, Euler lost his vision in his right eye at the age of 31 and was blind at the age of 59, but he was optimistic and had amazing memory and concentration. He was humble all his life and seldom named what he found with his own name. But still named one of the most important constants. e。

There used to be a joke about E: In a mental hospital, a patient said to others all day, "I differentiate you, I differentiate you." I don't know why, these patients all have a simple concept of calculus. They always think that one day they will be differentiated into zero and disappear like a general polynomial function, so they avoid him. However, one day he met an unmoved person, and he was surprised, and this person simply said to him, "I am the x power of E."

The ingenuity of this formula lies in that it does not have any redundant content, and it puts the most basic e, i and pie in mathematics into the same formula, and at the same time adds and 1, which are also the most important in mathematics and philosophy, and then connects them with a simple plus sign.

Gauss once said, "A man can't become a mathematician when he sees this formula for the first time and doesn't feel its charm."

Leonhard? Euler

No.1 Maxwell equations

Founder: James? Clark? Maxwell's

significance: organically unify electric field and magnetic field into a complete electromagnetic field. And founded the electromagnetic field theory, and without the electromagnetic theory, there would be no current social civilization.

anyone who can understand these formulas must feel a cool breeze behind them. If there is no God, how can such a perfect equation be explained? This set of formulas combines Gauss law of electricity, Gauss law of magnetism, Faraday law and Ampere law. A modest evaluation is: "Generally speaking, any electromagnetic phenomena in the universe can be explained by this set of equations." Later, Maxwell predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves from this set of formulas only by paper-and-pencil calculus.

James? Clark? Maxwell

Don't we always like to make up stories, for example, Einstein embarked on the road of studying hard and serving the motherland because of a certain stimulus when he was a child? In fact, this stimulus is the system of equations you see. It is precisely because this set of equations perfectly unifies the whole electromagnetic field that Einstein always wants to unify the gravitational field in the same way, and put the macro and micro forces in the same set: the famous "grand unification theory". Einstein never walked out of this tunnel until his death, and if he did, we would see God himself at the other end of the tunnel.

The champion of college entrance examination talks about physics learning methods.