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Possible Duplicate:
How to prove Euler's formula: $\\exp(i t)=\\cos(t)+i\\sin(t)$ ?

Hi, I've been curious for quite a long time whether it is actually possible to have an intuitive understanding of euler's apparently magical formula: $$e^{ \pm i\theta } = \cos \theta \pm i\sin \theta$$

I've obviously seen the taylor series/differential equation based proofs, and perhaps I'm just going to have to accept that it's not possible to have an intuition on what it means to raise a number to an imaginary power. I obviously realise that the formula implies that an exponential with a variable imaginary part can be visualised as a complex function going around in a unit circle about the origin of the complex plane. But WHY is this? And why is e so special that it moves at just a fast enough rate so that the argument of the exponential is equal to the arc length of the path made by the locus (i.e. the angle in radians we've moved around the circle)? Is there any way anyone out there 'understand' this?

Thankyou!

Community
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tom
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    Possible duplicate of

    http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3510/how-to-prove-eulers-formula-expi-t-costi-sint

    http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/9770/understanding-imaginary-exponents

     –  May 07 '11 at 05:20
  • Ahh, thanks for that, I had looked up 'euler's formula intuition' but I don't think I ran into either of these. – tom May 07 '11 at 05:24
  • Take a look at the answers to http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3510/how-to-prove-eulers-formula-expi-t-costi-sint – svenkatr May 07 '11 at 05:28
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    you might also be interested in http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/27050/how-does-the-natural-logarithm-relate-to-rotation/ . $e$ is special here for the same reason that it's always special: because $e^z$ is its own derivative. – Qiaochu Yuan May 07 '11 at 06:28

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If I recall from reading Analysis of the Infinite (very nice book, at least Volume $1$ is), Euler got it from looking at $$\left(1+\frac{i}{\infty}\right)^{\infty}$$ whose expansion is easy to find using the Binomial Theorem with exponent $\infty$.

There is a nice supposed quote from Euler, which can be paraphrased as "Sometimes my pencil is smarter than I am." He freely accepted the results of his calculations. But of course he was Euler.

André Nicolas
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  • You also get it just using the Taylor expansion of $\exp(i\theta)$. – Yuval Filmus May 07 '11 at 05:52
  • It's interesting thinking where he got that expression from... I can't quite see what it represents in terms of e and i... – tom May 07 '11 at 06:07
  • @tom: it represents the result you get from applying Euler's method to the system of two first-order ODEs describing a particle moving with unit velocity on a circle. See the question listed as a duplicate, in particular the .gif in my answer which illustrates this visually. – Qiaochu Yuan May 07 '11 at 06:21
  • @tom: He got it after working with the same expression with a real number $x$ in place of $i$. In that case there is a clear intuition. Presumably the fooling with $i$ was the pencil playing. – André Nicolas May 07 '11 at 06:51
  • haha, yep, it just hit me, was rushing on to share the enlightenment. And thanks for the link Qiachu! Looking forward to digesting it... – tom May 07 '11 at 08:22
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There's a book length treatment of this question: Where Mathematics Comes From by George Lakoff and Rafael E. Núñez.

Yuval Filmus
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