and also ELI16 what a an imaginary number is and how it works in real life
In: Mathematics
ELI5:
Imagine you have a number line to count things on. Regular numbers, like 1, 2, 3, and so on, all live on this number line. But what if you wanted to count something that wasn’t there?
Imaginary numbers are like special numbers that help us describe things that don’t exist on the regular number line. They’re kind of like pretending there’s a whole new part of the number line, just for imaginary things!
The most important imaginary number is called “i” and it’s defined as the square root of -1. That means if you multiply “i” by itself, you get -1. It might seem strange, but imaginary numbers are very useful in math, especially for things like electricity and engineering!
ELI16:
Regular numbers are like points on a number line, covering positive and negative values. But what if there was a kind of number that, when multiplied by itself, gave you a negative number? That’s where imaginary numbers come in.
They’re numbers that include the unit imaginary number, “i”, defined as the square root of -1. Since no real number squared equals a negative, imaginary numbers seemed impossible at first, hence the name.
But here’s the cool part: despite seeming imaginary, mathematicians discovered they were useful for solving equations that regular numbers couldn’t. These numbers extended the number system, creating complex numbers. These are numbers of the form “a + bi” where a and b are real numbers.
Even though imaginary numbers might have seemed strange at first, they’ve become a powerful tool in math, science, and engineering.
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