5 Obscure Formulas That Rule the World

This one of those articles that seems like it was written by a troll - the type that shows up on blogs - because it seems like it was written just to provoke a response. (And here I am responding to it.)

I'll agree with the article that the Dirac equation is both obscure and important.

But, the Doppler shift formula? It's neither obscure nor all that important. It's nowhere near as important, for example, as the Planck radiation law which not only governs how thermal energy is emitted by everything in the universe, but it also ties together 3 main branches of physics: optics, thermodynamics and quantum mechanics.

I'm not sure that the 'clocking evolution' law is all that important either. It doesn't actually describe the causes evolution (which would be important) it merely gives an empirical 'macro' description of how the molecular changes due to evolution can be quantified. I don't think our lives would be affected all that much if this formula was unknown.

And then on the other hand, considering the 'exponential decay' formula, it's actually more important than the article states because this same formula describes how all forms of energy are attenuated as they pass through a medium. For example, a version of this same formula known as 'Beer's Law' (or the Beer-Lambert formula) describes how light is attenuated as it passes through a glass or plastic filter. Versions of this formula are found throughout optics, electronics, radio engineering, acoustics, and many other fields.

Is "Stupid is as stupid does" a formula? If so that ones in play everywhere.

(If not its still doing far more work than it should both behind the scenes and up front where everyone can see it.)