3 ms·

Did you get all the way down to here? http://tauday.com/#sec:euler_s_formula http://tauday.com/#sec:euler_s_formula e^(i*tau) = 1 Much nicer that way.

• rudd 16y ago
  I actually disagree that that is nicer. e^(ipi) = -1, which means you can square both sides to come to the also factual statement, e^(itau) = 1. However, if you only knew the latter you'd be wondering whether e^(i*pi) would be 1 or -1.
  • dgritsko 16y ago
    By "much nicer", I was merely attempting to point out that drblast's formula: e^(tau*i/2)+1=0 could be stated as: e^(i*tau) = 1 As in the article. Whether that's intrinsically "better" than Euler's Identity is a different question, but not what I was discussing here.
  • pyrtsa 16y ago
    I actually disagree with that logic as well. If you just knew that e^(i * pi) = -1, then how would you know, whether halving that exponent would yield +i or -i? Considering that, we'd need to state Euler's identity as: e^(i * pi/2) = i, but again we'd know nothing about fractions of that exponent. And there we go! The point is, Euler's identity is a nice property of the definition of complex numbers, but in itself, not too generic. That's why OP's form, e^(i*tau) = 1, would do just fine. Edit: fixed asterisks.