Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Scientific T-shirts

College students love to express ideas on their T-shirts. One of the most interesting ones I've seen is one side that says "College is full of tough decisions", and the back side are all brands of beers. Ok, drinking all the time is a poor way to spend your college years. Some serious engineering students wear T-shirts with the front side that says "Don't Drink and Derive", the back side lists some common algebra mistakes like (a+b)^2 ≠ a^2+b^2. Quite interesting.

At my physics 102 class (actually called A35-2), I had an unforgettable scene. At the end of the first lecture, the professor says "in this quarter we will learn all about the following." He then took off the sweater and revealed a T-shirt with 4 equations! The Maxwell equations on a T-shirt! I had no idea what those upside down triangles (differential form) and those integrals with a circle (surface integral) were but those look very interesting. They even look artistic.

The professor was so proud of the equations that he put it on his T-shirt. He probably didn't buy that T-shirt, but made a custom T-shirt.

I think the world can use some fun math wardrobe. Fractals though don't have a lot of practical uses but I think would make a great tie pattern. Anyone interested in equation on the front, quick 1-page proof on the back?

I would probably wear a T-shirt on the Pythagorean theorem, Quadratic Formula, Euler's Formula, π, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, Green's theorem etc. How about a T-shirt listing Newton's 3 laws.... Archimedes would probably love a T-shirt about volume of a cylinder and a sphere. (He had that on his tombstone). I'd like to hire an artist to design these T-shirts! America needs a math revival.

2 comments:

bmalec said...

You forgot the Navier-Stokes equations!

Joseph Mak said...

Unfortunately I don't know fluid mechanics. :( Fortunately I can read it from wiki