I’m writing a paper on real world applications of complex numbers and can’t understand it at all. If you have any other real world applications, that would be super helpful too. Thanks!
In: Mathematics
Electrical power can be considered in complex number terms. Google “power factor” for some breakdowns.
Electrical impedance can be expressed on a graph with resistance on the X axis and inductance and capacitance as positive and negative on the y axis. So a certain impedance would be considered to have a real resistance value plus an imaginary inductance/capacitance value.
In industry power factor is very important because if say the power draw of your factory has a large imaginary component, then the power plants have to cope with that. Many industries get penalised if they have a poor power factor. In modern practice, companies will install large capacitor banks in their factories to improve the power factor. Poor power factor is usually because they have massive inductance from big electrical motors, so the capacitor banks compensate for that.
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