Talk:Arms Race with Legs/@comment-11668612-20160514195536/@comment-24468230-20160531213621

Redfox, e^(i*x) = cos(x) + i*sin(x) is a mathematical statement, and it's been proven to be true.

I can't prove it, as I'm not a math teacher, but I did major in math in college. I can explain the meaning: "e" is the famous irrational base of the so-called natural logarithm (about 2.718), "sin" and "cos" represent the trigonometric functions of sine and cosine, respectively, "i" is the imaginary square root of -1, "x" represents a variable, and "^" is the exponential function (like 2^3 = 2*2*2 = 8), usually written with superscipts (which are not on option on computers, hence the use of "^".) Don't worry if you still don't understand it; many mathematicians don't.

One consequence of this, using the famous irrational constant pi (the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, with a value of about 3.1416), is that e^(i*pi) = cos(pi) + i*sin(pi) = -1 + i*0 = -1, or (as it's usally written) e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0.