h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

All that without mentioning God once?

Euler was put in a position of defending the Church from the atheist free thinkers of the day. Allegedley he bamboozled them with maths, something that will not be repeated in this day and age.

According to Dawkins God if he exists he must be complex, so if God were capable of being described as a number it'd probably be a complex number. Which is one number in three parts, a real part and an imaginary part, this imaginary part being made up of i and a real factor of i.

So did Euler also reintroduce a mathematical explanation of the Trinity?

Apparently complex numbers were around in Ancient Greece too.

Incidently isn't 1 a perfect number?

Most people don't know what complex numbers are for and get by nicely without them. The few people that do find a use for them find them very handy. Note: I say few but I know that more and more people are learning to use them in A level and Degree maths etc. but proportionally very few actually use them outside education.

A perfect number is a number which is the sum of its divisors. In making the list of divisors, the number itself is excluded. By this definition, 1 is not a perfect number.

I've heard the story about Euler and the proof of God's existence. I didn't include it. Euler hadn't worked out any logical proof of God's existence or non-existence - he was confusing his opponent by spouting equations that the other guy couldn't understand.

Thanks for the advice on the perfect number bit, it's be a long time since I did any maths, I used to really like it though.

I liked what Dawkins put in his book about Euler's answer to Napoleon's question though. I didn't need that theory on this occasion or something like that.

People don't normally need to know about God,
Also most people don't need to know about complex numbers.

I would say that there is a time when certain theories are useful and others when they are not. Euler was spot on, great page thanks.

"I liked what Dawkins put in his book about Euler's answer to Napoleon's question though."

Except that Euler was dead at the time - you're thinking of Pierre-Simon Laplace.