how do imaginary numbers work, and what are they used for
In: 7
A lot of mathematics started by asking “what if”.
About 500 years ago, some mathematicians started asking, “what if there was a square root of -1”?
They called this “imaginary” number *i* and tried doing calculations with it.
It turns out that it’s really useful and helpful to do it.
Basically, you start with a math problem. You assume *i* exists, and use that to do your calculations.
When you’re done, you ignore / throw away the imaginary part of the result. And amazingly, you get the right answer. And often you get there much *faster* and *easier* then if you assumed that imaginary numbers didn’t exist.
Math is just kind of weird that way. It seems like a crazy idea, but hey – it’s a crazy idea that’s useful and actually works!
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