Dark cover with the title Every Formula Is a First Term, the expansion E = mc² + ½mv² + (3/8)mv⁴/c² + … in amber, and a faint pink sigma in the corner.

Every Formula Is a First Term

E = mc² is the first term of a series that never ends, and so are F = ma, Hooke’s law and the ideal gas. Not because the true law is infinitely long: because every smooth structure looks like its tangent from wherever you stand, and an expansion point is a frame. Part Eleven, for philosophers and theologians: Taylor’s theorem, why the series dies where it does, and what no series can see. … readEvery Formula Is a First Term