Skip to main content
Post Made Community Wiki
Source Link
Bruno
  • 456
  • 4
  • 12

Here is another devil's advocacy: We (mathematicians) are not familiar with many transcendental numbers such as $\pi$ or $e$. When in a formula appears some transcendental number that can be expressed as a function of $\pi$, we are happy with that and we have our "solution" for the problem. But if it is not related to $\pi$ (or $e$, or etc...), we just think "OK, we don't have a solution yet."

Another way of saying pretty much the same thing is the fact that since we know very well $\pi$ and its properties, as soon as it is "in the neighborhood" of our problem, we see it, but if it is not here (and neither $e$ or another famous constant), we do not know where exactly to look to find an acceptable solution.

My 2-cent guess is "the better we know a number (through formulas for instance), the more often it will appear in new formula in the future."