1089 and all that

Talking about " π ", I just finished reading a small book "1089 and all that" by David Acheson, Jesus College, Oxford (First published in 2002, reprinted 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006). It is a very interesting small book on Mathematics that brings readers into a journey of the wonders of Mathematics, or numbers, in laymen's terms.

I've always been fascinated by the magical number "e", which equals to 2.718... and I notice its omnipresence in the natural world, as well as in the realm of Accounting and Finance. What this book talks about is that, it links up "e" ," π ", and the imaginary number "i" (which equals to square root "-1"), the three most inexplicable figures; and demonstrates that a relationship amongst them exists:

e ^(i π) = -1

How fascinating!

I got the feeling that it seems to have an anology to the empty hole which is present in our Chinese Tai Chi symbol in the reverse colour!