(via MetaFilter)
The Edge-Serpentine Gallery has a show displaying various scientists' and thinkers' "equations." Some are just banal or silly (like John Brockman's: "New Technologies = New Perceptions"--which could just as well be reversed & most often should be), but a couple are pretty good. Danny Kahneman's is actually funny & very close to an equation Bruce Duffy put in his Wittgenstein novel, The World as I Found It:
W/F = S [W=Will, F=Fear, S=Scope]
When I first came across that one I revised it to:
(W * T)/F = S [adding T=Talent]
Then, on further reflection, added the relevant exponent (and it does matter that much), Luck:
((W*T)/F)L = S
It's a fun little game--but none of these entries compares to my all-time favorite (and completely insane) literary equation, Karl Kraus's formula for the female soul in his Aphorismen:
I've never actually plugged that formula into Excel to see what its graph looks like. Should I?