To a nonmathematician, having the letter “i” represent a number that does not quite exist and is “imaginary” can be hard to wrap your head around. If you open your mind to this way of thinking, ...

Mathematicians were disturbed, centuries ago, to find that calculating the properties of certain curves demanded the seemingly impossible: numbers that, when multiplied by themselves, turn negative.

Our February Insights puzzle sent readers on a treasure hunt based on complex numbers. First we provided a bit of a primer, demonstrating that complex numbers (expressions of the form a + bi, where ...

For almost a century, physicists have been intrigued by the fundamental question: why are complex numbers so important in quantum mechanics, that is, numbers containing a component with the imaginary ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Computer engineers at Duke University have demonstrated that using complex numbers—numbers with both real and imaginary components—can play an integral part in securing artificial ...

Robyn Arianrhod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

An international team of researchers shows through a concrete theoretical experiment that the prediction by standard complex quantum theory cannot be expressed by its real counterpart and ratifies its ...

Imagine winding the hour hand of a clock back from 3 o’clock to noon. Mathematicians have long known how to describe this rotation as a simple multiplication: A number representing the initial ...

Think back to elementary school during which you learned about a seemingly useless mathematical relic called prime numbers. Your teacher told you in class one day that they are special numbers, ...