DE EULERI IDENTITATE

Introduction
Imagine you give a blind man a pencil and you ask him to draw whatever he
wants to. It is quite likely that he wont be able to make a good performance in
such task due to his impairment. Imagine you give some monkeys a typewritter
and command him to type. Most likely they would write nonsense. Imagine
you throw a can of paint to a wall and the you look at the result. Then youll
probably have ruined a nice wall.
But still, theres a small chance that youll get a master piece with any of
those tasks. Theres a small chance that you can make a mumble into one of
the most remarkable piece of poetry ever written. Shouldnt you feel compelled
to tell everyone about it?
Thats Eulers Identity.
Euler Identity is a mathematical construct that contains some of the most
important numbers in maths and the most basic operation. Said ingredients are
combined in the most puzzling way posible. Dispite its weird expression, it IS
true.
Eulers Identity contains 5 numbers. 1, 0 , e, and i. 1 and 0 are probably
the most familiar number of this quintet. is also famous because of its appli-
cations in geometry, specially with circles and circle-like shapes and volumes.
i is the puzzling imaginary unit, a strange number that seem to make no
sense. But still this number is quite useful in electronic engineer, automatized
control, quantum mechanics, waves description, number theory to name a few
of its aplications. Interestingly i seem to shed some light on dicult problems
where real numbers just create nonsense.
e is a more ignored creature. e is a number with a certain pedigree, a snobish
one. While he remains unknown to most of the not methematical people but, it
is a quite important number. Whereever some inestability appears, e might be
there. Whereever a property fades over time, e is there. Whereever wave-like
behaivior emerges, e is there. When describing populations, e pops up. But Im
getting ahead of myself.
The operations that relate this numbers are quite known and dont deserve
any presentation: addition, multiplication, exponentiation. All recaped in a
simple equality.
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With its simplicity, its puzzling structure and its truth, Eulers Identity is the
standard for beauty in math. Its just as provoking as an expresionist painting.
So lets meet this weird puzzle of math.
Some necessary identities
Ok, sooner or later you will face some weird equations and identities. So here
they are. Bear in mind that if you dont fully understand one of them you ought
to try to nd some textbook that help you shed some light on them.
sin(x + y) = sin(x) cos(y) + sin(y) cos(x)
sin(x y) = sin(x) cos(y) sin(y) cos(x)
cos(x + y) = cos(x) cos(y) sin(y) sin(x)
cos(x y) = cos(x) cos(y) + sin(y) sin(x)
lim
x
_
1 +
1
x
_
x
= e
z = a + ib = r(cos() + i sin())
r
2
= a
2
+ b
2
=
_

_
a > 0 = arctan
_
b
a
_
a < 0 b 0 = + arctan
_
b
a
_
a < 0 b < 0 = arctan
_
b
a
_

a = 0 b > 0 =

2
a = 0 b < 0 =

2
a = 0 b = 0 = 0
Concerning the number e and the exponential
function
Ok, lets get our hands dirty. We dene the exponential function as:
exp(x) = lim
y
_
1 +
x
y
_
y
From this denition is easy to note that x = 0 = exp(0) = 1
However for an other values of x this denition is a bit weird since it makes
it dicult to obtain any value from it. So lets try to play arround with it.
2
lim
y
_
1 +
x
y
_
y
= lim
y
_
1 +
x
y
_
y
x
x
= lim
y
_
1 +
1
y
x
_
y
x
x
We can do this operation as long as x = 0 since we are multiplying by 1 =
x
x
in the exponent. It is important to know that our result wont be true for x = 0,
but we have already considered that case.
lim
y
_
1 +
1
y
x
_
y
x
x
= lim
z
_
1 +
1
y
x
_
y
x
x
= lim
z
__
1 +
1
z
_
z
_
x
Here we have chaged the variable of the limit. We can do that because when
y is the same as
y
x
where x is a xed constant and it doesnt depends
on y. After that we dene z =
y
x
. Then we rearrange the exponente in a more
clear fashion. Heres the catch, we have stated that lim
x
_
1 +
1
x
_
x
= e
then:
lim
z
__
1 +
1
z
_
z
_
x
= e
x
except when x = 0. But exp(0) = 1 and e
0
= 1, therefore:
exp(x) = lim
y
_
1 +
x
y
_
y
= e
x
Now it makes total sense why we had dened the exponential in this way,
because we obtain an exponentiation. However, we have proven the relationship
between this limit and the function exp(x) = e
x
, but what does it happens when
we try to calculate:
lim
y
_
1 +
ix
y
_
y
= e
ix
Where i is the imaginary unit and x is a real number
1
. Can we calculate
this limit?
Multipling complex numbers and the behavior of
the argument
Theres a couple of stu we can do to:
1
Its easy to note that if x is a complex number then we have e
ix
= e
(ix)+i(ix)
=
e
(ix)
e
i(ix)
.
3
lim
y
_
1 +
ix
y
_
y
For starter we can use integers for y instead of a continious variable. This
comes from two reasons. First, we dont care how we apporach innity as long
as we reach it. Also, if y in integer, we are just multipling a certain numbers of
time a complex number. For multipling complex numbers we have some nifty
tricks. Lets take two complex numbers and multiply them in their polar form.
zw = r(cos() + i sin())(cos() + i sin())
= r(cos() cos() sin() sin() + i sin() cos() + i sin() cos())
= r(cos( + ) + i sin( + ))
Where we have only distributed multiplication and used the previous iden-
tities.
However there are some things we can take from this. First the arguments
of the complex numbers add when you multiply them, and the radii multiply.
Also if we impose r = and = then we obtain zw = r
2
. This is called
multiply a complex number by its conjugate. Since cos(x) is an even function
and sin(x) an odd one we can see that given z = a + ib then its conjugate is
z

= a ib.
Lets take these results to our initial problem. We had:
e
ix
= lim
n
_
1 +
ix
n
_
n
where n is an integer. Now lets calculate the radius of this limit. To get the
radius we must multiply this number for its conjugate. So if we have z = a+ib =
r(cos() +i sin()) its complex conjugate is z

= aib = r(cos() +i sin())

so if we have z
n
= (a + ib)
n
= r
n
(cos(n) + i sin(n)) then its conjugate is
(z
n
)

= r
n
(cos(n) + i sin(n)). But r
n
(cos(n) + i sin(n) = (z

)
n
,
therefore (z
n
)

= (z

)
n
.
So

e
ix

2
= lim
n
_
1 +
ix
n
_
n
lim
n
_
1 +
ix
n
_
n
= lim
n
_
1 +
ix
n
_
n
_
1 +
ix
n
_
n
= lim
n
_
1 +
x
2
n
2
_
n
And the we do the trick we do with the exponential function:
4

e
ix

2
= lim
n
_
1 +
x
2
n
2
_
n
= lim
n
_
1 +
1
n
2
x
2
_
n
= lim
n
_
1 +
1
n
2
x
2
_
n
nx
2
nx
2
= lim
n
_
1 +
1
n
2
x
2
_n
2
x
2
x
2
n
= lim
n
_
_
_
_
1 +
1
n
2
x
2
_n
2
x
2
_
_
_
limn
x
2
n
= e
limn
x
2
n
= e
0
= 1
Therefore

e
ix

= 1 which means that the interestin part of the function is

inside the argument.
Returning to our multiplication properties we can see that z
n
= r
n
(cos(n)+
i sin(n)) where n is an integer. So:
Arg(

e
ix

) = lim
n
nArg
_
1 +
ix
n
_
= lim
n
narctan
_
x
n
_
Now lets take tan() =
x
n
. Then we have,
Arg(

e
ix

) = lim
n
n
= lim
n
n
x
x

= lim
n
x

x
n
= xlim
n

tan()
Lets take a closer look. tan() =
x
n
means that n 0.
Therefore:
Arg(

e
ix

) = xlim
n

tan()
= xlim
0
cos()
sin()
= xlim
0

sin()
5
But how can we calculate said limit?
Finally we must point out something about multiplication of complexes and
arguments. Multipling numbers makes the arguments sum. This is quite similar
to exponentiation, where a
b
a
c
= a
b+c
. This statement should shed some light
on the nature of the argumente of

e
ix

.
Equivalence in the origin of sin x and x
Lets take a look a Fig 1. We have a trigonometric circunsference. Said cir-
cunsference has its center in the coordinates origin and their raduis is equal to
1 in the correct units. Then we have some auxiliar lines drawn. For instance
we have drawn a line tangent to the circunsference in the point (1,0) and a line
at radians from the x axis.
sin()
tan()
1
1

x
y
O
C
A
B
Figure 1: CORRECT THIS FIGURE Scheme showing the
areas we are interested in. With dierent shades of gray we
have a right triangle (dark gray), a smaller triangle (light gray)
and a circular sector (gray). The length of the base of said
triangles is 1 and their length hieght is shown in the picture.
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CORRECT THIS TEXT ABC This lines dene a bigger triangle colored in
dark gray. Also in light gray theres a smaller triangle formed by the x axis,
the line of radians and a line passing through (1,0) and the intersection of the
line with the trigonometric circunsference. Also in gray is colored a circular
sector of radians.
Using some basic trigonometry it can be shown that the lenght of the height
of each triangle is the one noted in Fig 1. Both triangles share the same base,
and its length is 1. With this knowledge we can calcualte the area of each
triangle, since the area of a triangle is given by
bh
2
where b is the lengh of the
base and h the length of the height.
Now, whats the area of the sector? Since the radius is 1, the area of the full
circle is . There are 2 radians in a full circle, therefore the area of a sector
per radian is

2
=
1
2
. Since we have radians the area is

2
Since each area is inside another we can state that the area of the smaller
triangle is less or equal to the area of the sector. This later area is less or equal
to the area of the bigger triangle. In other words:
sin()
2


2

tan()
2
As long as

2
> 0. Now for 0 < <

2
the expression remains true as
long as we consider their absolute value.

sin()
2

tan()
2

For

2
>

2
. Now lets multiply each side of the inequality by

2
sin()

sin()
2

2
sin()

2
sin()

sin()
A
2 cos()

A
2

sin()

sin()

1
cos()

Lets take a closer look at this functions. First, we must point out that since

2
sin()

> 0 the signs of the inequation remains the same. Also we must point
out that the left and the right side of the inequation are even functions, and are
positive for

2
>

2
. The middle side is the product of 2 odd functions,
that means its an even function. Also in

2
> 0 both sin() and are
positive, therefore

sin()
> 0 for

2
>

2
. So we have:
1

sin()

1
cos()
Lets take the limits in the three sides as approaches 0.
lim
0
1 lim
0

sin()
lim
0
1
cos()
7
since 1 and
1
cos()
present no issues as 0, then
1 lim
0

sin()
1
So:
lim
0

sin()
= 1
Therefore:
Arg(

e
ix

) = x
Meaning:
e
ix
= cos(x) + i sin(x)
Which explains the weird exponent-like behavior of the argument.
Eulers Identity: the real deal
Finally lets take x = and add one at each side of the equality
.
e
i
+ 1 = cos() + i sin() + 1
e
i
+ 1 = 1 + i 0 + 1
e
i
+ 1 = 0
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