Re: HSC 2013 4U Marathon
This is not legit though, as I have explained on these forums before.
Originally Posted by bleakarcher
Hey seanie, just a question. Would you consider this a satisfactory proof of Euler's formul? I remember reading somewhere it's like a poor man's proof of it lol.
Let f(x)=cos(x)+isin(x)
Consider f'(x)/f(x)=[-sin(x)+icos(x)]/[cos(x)+isin(x)]=i
Integrating both sides, log(e)[f(x)]=ix+C
When x=0, f(x) => C=0 => f(x)=cos(x)+isin(x)=e^(ix)
K, going to be really careful and really critical here so you see the sort of issues that can happen when you 'prove' things without care.
First line is fine, we have defined a function from the reals to the complex numbers, this isn't really done in mx2 but it is perfectly legit.
The second is fine, it uses the fact that the derivative of functions from R to C behave like the regular derivative, in that (f+g)'=f'+g' and (cf)'=cf' for functions f,g constant c. This should be proven by first principles before taking it as fact, but the proof is pretty much identical to the real valued analogue.
The third line is my first and main issue. Firstly, you are integrating a complex function. This, like differentiation is legit...it turns out we can integrate the real and imaginary parts separately and add them, although this requires proof.
More importantly, you are integrating the LHS using a pattern that is valid for real functions, but how do we know this is the case for complex functions? In fact this line does not even make sense, because we have not defined what log(z) is for complex z! (And f(x) is certainly complex for all real x). In this line we are basically crossing our fingers and hoping that there is a function called log defined on the complex plane (except possibly at 1) which has derivative 1/z everywhere, then we are pretending this function exists!
The next step involves raising e to the power of both sides. But each side is complex? What does it mean to raise a number to a complex power?
We are also crossing our fingers and pretending that our magical function log on the complex plane from before cancels out when e is raised to the power of it (in the sense of our magical way of raising numbers to complex powers.) Because we are using the same letters for e and log as we did for our familiar e and log from the real line to the real line, they must obey all the same properties right?
On the final line we have arrived at the conclusion...but wait a minute, what does the RHS even mean? We have gone from not having complex powers defined, to knowing what a certain number to a complex power is?! That's the most immediate way to tell that this argument is balls, it doesn't 'prove' anything.
Hope this helps . Feel free to ask for clarification on anything.