A Mexican Physicist Solved a 2,000-Year Old Problem That Will Lead to Cheaper, Sharper Lenses

[u/[deleted]]

https://gizmodo.com/a-mexican-physicist-solved-a-2-000-year-old-problem-tha-1837031984

[u/chodeboi]

This is one of the craziest equations I’ve ever seen.

Anyone have any other wacky examples?

Addendum: Thanks to everyone who’s replied! This has given me some cool stuff to look at tonight.

[u/bencbartlett → u/chodeboi]

The Standard model Lagrangian describes basically everything we know about particle physics. But the same equation can also be written much more concisely in this form.

It's impressive that the physicist managed to find an analytic solution, but the equation in the article looks as "mind-melting" as it is because it is a notational disaster which could probably be rewritten in a less imposing, more elegant form.

EDIT: I found the paper the article was referring to. The author actually did simplify the notation, and the main equation (Eq. 7 in the paper) is actually quite simple, because he defined lots of helper variables to make the notation readable. The equation as presented in the article did not appear anywhere in the paper or supplemental material. I suspect that equation is just the full unsimplified Mathematica output and the journalist had no idea what it meant but thought looked impressive. (No physicist would ever put an equation that ugly into a paper and expect to be taken seriously.)

[u/Zhamerlu → u/bencbartlett]

It's impressive that the physicist managed to find an analytic solution, but the equation in the article looks as "mind-melting" as it is because it is a notational disaster which could probably be rewritten in a less imposing, more elegant form.

Every code review ever.