Imaginary numbers might seem like unicorns and goblins — interesting but irrelevant to reality. But for describing matter at its roots, imaginary numbers turn out to be essential. They seem to be ...
Quantum mechanics has at last been formulated exclusively with real numbers, bringing a mathematical puzzle at the heart of ...
To a nonmathematician, having the letter "i" represent a number that does not quite exist and is "imaginary" can be hard to ...
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Mathematics started with numbers—clear, concrete, intuitive. Over the last two centuries, however, it has become a far more abstract ...
Math has a certain logic to it. If you use it to accurately describe a situation, sometimes you can predict the inevitable — for instance, the moment an eclipse will take place — centuries in advance.
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