In
mathematics, a complex number is an element of a
number system that extends the
real numbers with a specific element denoted i, called the
imaginary unit and satisfying the
equation; every complex number can be expressed in the form , where a and b are real numbers. Because no real number satisfies the above equation, i was called an
imaginary number by
René Descartes. For the complex number ,a is called the real part, and b is called the imaginary part. The set of complex numbers is denoted by either of the symbols or C. Despite the historical nomenclature, "imaginary" complex numbers have a
mathematical existence as firm as that of the real numbers, and they are fundamental tools in the scientific description of the natural world.[1][2]
Complex numbers allow solutions to all
polynomial equations, even those that have no solutions in real numbers. More precisely, the
fundamental theorem of algebra asserts that every non-constant polynomial equation with real or complex coefficients has a solution which is a complex number. For example, the equation
has no real solution, because the square of a real number cannot be negative, but has the two nonreal complex solutions and .
Addition, subtraction and multiplication of complex numbers can be naturally defined by using the rule along with the
associative,
commutative, and
distributive laws. Every nonzero complex number has a
multiplicative inverse. This makes the complex numbers a
field with the real numbers as a subfield.
The complex numbers also form a
real vector space of
dimension two, with as a
standard basis. This standard basis makes the complex numbers a
Cartesian plane, called the
complex plane. This allows a geometric interpretation of the complex numbers and their operations, and conversely some geometric objects and operations can be expressed in terms of complex numbers. For example, the real numbers form the
real line, which is pictured as the horizontal axis of the complex plane, while real multiples of are the vertical axis. A complex number can also be defined by its geometric
polar coordinates: the radius is called the
absolute value of the complex number, while the angle from the positive real axis is called the argument of the complex number. The complex numbers of absolute value one form the
unit circle. Adding a fixed complex number to all complex numbers defines a
translation in the complex plane, and multiplying by a fixed complex number is a
similarity centered at the origin (dilating by the absolute value, and rotating by the argument). The operation of
complex conjugation is the
reflection symmetry with respect to the real axis.
A complex number is an expression
of the forma + bi, where a and b are
real numbers, and i is an abstract symbol, the so-called
imaginary unit, whose meaning will be explained further below. For example, 2 + 3i is a complex number.[3]
For a complex number a + bi, the real number a is called its real part , and the real number b (not the complex number bi) is its imaginary part.[4][5] The real part of a complex number z is denoted Re(z), , or ; the imaginary part is Im(z), , or : for example,, .
A complex number z can be identified with the
ordered pair of real numbers , which may be interpreted as coordinates of a point in a Euclidean plane with standard coordinates, which is then called the complex plane or Argand diagram,[6][a].[7] The horizontal axis is generally used to display the real part, with increasing values to the right, and the imaginary part marks the vertical axis, with increasing values upwards.
A real number a can be regarded as a complex number a + 0i, whose imaginary part is 0. A purely
imaginary numberbi is a complex number 0 + bi, whose real part is zero. As with polynomials, it is common to write a + 0i = a, 0 + bi = bi, and a + (−b)i = a − bi; for example, 3 + (−4)i = 3 − 4i.
The
set of all complex numbers is denoted by (
blackboard bold) or C (upright bold).
The addition can be geometrically visualized as follows: the sum of two complex numbers a and b, interpreted as points in the complex plane, is the point obtained by building a
parallelogram from the three vertices O, and the points of the arrows labeled a and b (provided that they are not on a line). Equivalently, calling these points A, B, respectively and the fourth point of the parallelogram X the
trianglesOAB and XBA are
congruent.
Multiplication
The product of two complex numbers is computed as follows:
For example, .
In particular, this includes as a special case the fundamental formula
This formula distinguishes the complex number i from any real number, since the square of any (negative or positive) real number x always satisfies .
With this definition of multiplication and addition, familiar rules for the arithmetic of rational or real numbers continue to hold for complex numbers. More precisely, the
distributive property, the
commutative properties (of addition and multiplication) hold. Therefore, the complex numbers form an algebraic structure known as a
field, the same way as the rational or real numbers do.[10]
Complex conjugate, absolute value and argument
The complex conjugate of the complex number z = x + yi is defined as
.[11] It is also denoted by some authors by . Geometrically, z is the
"reflection" of z about the real axis. Conjugating twice gives the original complex number: A complex number is real if and only if it equals its own conjugate. The
unary operation of taking the complex conjugate of a complex number cannot be expressed by applying only their basic operations addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
For any complex number z = x + yi , the product
is a non-negative real number. This allows to define the absolute value (or modulus or magnitude) of z to be the
square root[12]
By
Pythagoras' theorem, is the distance from the origin to the point representing the complex number z in the complex plane. In particular,
circle of radius one around the origin consists precisely of the numbers z such that . If is a real number, then : its absolute value as a complex number and as a real number are equal.
Using the conjugate, the
reciprocal of a nonzero complex number can be computed to be
More generally, the division of an arbitrary complex number by a non-zero complex number equals
This process is sometimes called "
rationalization" of the denominator (although the denominator in the final expression might be an irrational real number), because it resembles the method to remove roots from simple expressions in a denominator.[citation needed]
The argument of z (sometimes called the "phase" φ)[7] is the angle of the
radiusOz with the positive real axis, and is written as arg z, expressed in
radians in this article. The angle is defined only up to adding integer multiples of , since a rotation by (or 360°) around the origin leaves all points in the complex plane unchanged. One possible choice to uniquely specify the argument is to require it to be within the interval , which is referred to as the
principal value.[13]
The argument can be computed from the rectangular form x + yi by means of the
arctan (inverse tangent) function.[14]
"Polar form" redirects here. For the higher-dimensional analogue, see
Polar decomposition.
For any complex number z, with absolute value and argument , the equation
holds. This identity is referred to as the polar form of z. It is sometimes abbreviated as .
In
electronics, one represents a
phasor with amplitude r and phase φ in
angle notation:[15]
If two complex numbers are given in polar form, i.e., z1 = r1(cos φ1 + i sin φ1) and z2 = r2(cos φ2 + i sin φ2), the product and division can be computed as
(These are a consequence of the
trigonometric identities for the sine and cosine function.)
In other words, the absolute values are multiplied and the arguments are added to yield the polar form of the product. The picture at the right illustrates the multiplication of
Because the real and imaginary part of 5 + 5i are equal, the argument of that number is 45 degrees, or π/4 (in
radian). On the other hand, it is also the sum of the angles at the origin of the red and blue triangles are
arctan(1/3) and arctan(1/2), respectively. Thus, the formula
holds. As the
arctan function can be approximated highly efficiently, formulas like this – known as
Machin-like formulas – are used for high-precision approximations of
π.[citation needed]
The n-th power of a complex number can be computed using
de Moivre's formula, which is obtained by repeatedly applying the above formula for the product:
For example, the first few powers of the imaginary unit i are .
for 0 ≤ k ≤ n − 1. (Here is the usual (positive) nth root of the positive real number r.) Because sine and cosine are periodic, other integer values of k do not give other values. For any , there are, in particular n distinct complex n-th roots. For example, there are 4 fourth roots of 1, namely
In general there is no natural way of distinguishing one particular complex nth root of a complex number. (This is in contrast to the roots of a positive real number x, which has a unique positive real n-th root, which is therefore commonly referred to as then-th root of x.) One refers to this situation by saying that the nth root is a
n-valued function of z.
has at least one complex solution z, provided that at least one of the higher coefficients a1, ..., an is nonzero.[16] This property does not hold for the
field of rational numbers (the polynomial x2 − 2 does not have a rational root, because
√2 is not a rational number) nor the real numbers (the polynomial x2 + 4 does not have a real root, because the square of x is positive for any real number x).
Because of this fact, is called an
algebraically closed field. It is a cornerstone of various applications of complex numbers, as is detailed further below.
There are various proofs of this theorem, by either analytic methods such as
Liouville's theorem, or
topological ones such as the
winding number, or a proof combining
Galois theory and the fact that any real polynomial of odd degree has at least one real root.
The solution in
radicals (without
trigonometric functions) of a general
cubic equation, when all three of its roots are real numbers, contains the square roots of
negative numbers, a situation that cannot be rectified by factoring aided by the
rational root test, if the cubic is
irreducible; this is the so-called casus irreducibilis ("irreducible case"). This conundrum led Italian mathematician
Gerolamo Cardano to conceive of complex numbers in around 1545 in his Ars Magna,[17] though his understanding was rudimentary; moreover he later described complex numbers as "as subtle as they are useless".[18] Cardano did use imaginary numbers, but described using them as "mental torture."[19] This was prior to the use of the graphical complex plane. Cardano and other Italian mathematicians, notably
Scipione del Ferro, in the 1500s created an algorithm for solving cubic equations which generally had one real solution and two solutions containing an imaginary number. Because they ignored the answers with the imaginary numbers, Cardano found them useless.[20]
Many mathematicians contributed to the development of complex numbers. The rules for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and root extraction of complex numbers were developed by the Italian mathematician
Rafael Bombelli.[21] A more abstract formalism for the complex numbers was further developed by the Irish mathematician
William Rowan Hamilton, who extended this abstraction to the theory of
quaternions.[22]
The impetus to study complex numbers as a topic in itself first arose in the 16th century when
algebraic solutions for the roots of
cubic and
quarticpolynomials were discovered by Italian mathematicians (
Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia and
Gerolamo Cardano). It was soon realized (but proved much later)[25] that these formulas, even if one were interested only in real solutions, sometimes required the manipulation of square roots of negative numbers. In fact, it was proved later that the use of complex numbers
is unavoidable when all three roots are real and distinct.[c] However, the general formula can still be used in this case, with some care to deal with the ambiguity resulting from the existence of three cubic roots for nonzero complex numbers. Rafael Bombelli was the first to address explicitly these seemingly paradoxical solutions of cubic equations and developed the rules for complex arithmetic, trying to resolve these issues.
The term "imaginary" for these quantities was coined by
René Descartes in 1637, who was at pains to stress their unreal nature:[26]
... sometimes only imaginary, that is one can imagine as many as I said in each equation, but sometimes there exists no quantity that matches that which we imagine.
[... quelquefois seulement imaginaires c'est-à-dire que l'on peut toujours en imaginer autant que j'ai dit en chaque équation, mais qu'il n'y a quelquefois aucune quantité qui corresponde à celle qu'on imagine.
A further source of confusion was that the equation seemed to be capriciously inconsistent with the algebraic identity , which is valid for non-negative real numbers a and b, and which was also used in complex number calculations with one of a, b positive and the other negative. The incorrect use of this identity in the case when both a and b are negative, and the related identity , even bedeviled
Leonhard Euler. This difficulty eventually led to the convention of using the special symbol i in place of to guard against this mistake.[citation needed] Even so, Euler considered it natural to introduce students to complex numbers much earlier than we do today. In his elementary algebra text book, Elements of Algebra, he introduces these numbers almost at once and then uses them in a natural way throughout.
In the 18th century complex numbers gained wider use, as it was noticed that formal manipulation of complex expressions could be used to simplify calculations involving trigonometric functions. For instance, in 1730
Abraham de Moivre noted that the identities relating trigonometric functions of an integer multiple of an angle to powers of trigonometric functions of that angle could be re-expressed by the following
de Moivre's formula:
by formally manipulating complex
power series and observed that this formula could be used to reduce any trigonometric identity to much simpler exponential identities.
Wessel's memoir appeared in the Proceedings of the
Copenhagen Academy but went largely unnoticed. In 1806
Jean-Robert Argand independently issued a pamphlet on complex numbers and provided a rigorous proof of the
fundamental theorem of algebra.[30]Carl Friedrich Gauss had earlier published an essentially
topological proof of the theorem in 1797 but expressed his doubts at the time about "the true metaphysics of the square root of −1".[31] It was not until 1831 that he overcame these doubts and published his treatise on complex numbers as points in the plane,[32] largely establishing modern notation and terminology:[33]
If one formerly contemplated this subject from a false point of view and therefore found a mysterious darkness, this is in large part attributable to clumsy terminology. Had one not called +1, −1, positive, negative, or imaginary (or even impossible) units, but instead, say, direct, inverse, or lateral units, then there could scarcely have been talk of such darkness.
The English mathematician
G.H. Hardy remarked that Gauss was the first mathematician to use complex numbers in "a really confident and scientific way" although mathematicians such as
NorwegianNiels Henrik Abel and
Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi were necessarily using them routinely before Gauss published his 1831 treatise.[42]
The common terms used in the theory are chiefly due to the founders. Argand called cos φ + i sin φ the direction factor, and the modulus;[d][43] Cauchy (1821) called cos φ + i sin φ the reduced form (l'expression réduite)[44] and apparently introduced the term argument; Gauss used i for ,[e] introduced the term complex number for a + bi,[f] and called a2 + b2 the norm.[g] The expression direction coefficient, often used for cos φ + i sin φ, is due to Hankel (1867),[48] and absolute value, for modulus, is due to Weierstrass.
While the above low-level definitions, including the addition and multiplication, accurately describes the complex numbers, there are other, equivalent approaches that reveal the abstract algebraic structure of the complex numbers more immediately.
Construction as a quotient field
One approach to is via
polynomials, i.e., expressions of the form
where the
coefficientsa0, ..., an are real numbers. The set of all such polynomials is denoted by . Since sums and products of polynomials are again polynomials, this set forms a
commutative ring, called the
polynomial ring (over the reals). To every such polynomial p, one may assign the complex number , i.e., the value obtained by setting . This defines a function
This function is
surjective since every complex number can be obtained in such a way: the evaluation of a
linear polynomial at is . However, the evaluation of polynomial at i is 0, since This polynomial is
irreducible, i.e., cannot be written as a product of two linear polynomials. Basic facts of
abstract algebra then imply that the
kernel of the above map is an
ideal generated by this polynomial, and that the quotient by this ideal is a field, and that there is an
isomorphism
between the quotient ring and . Some authors take this as the definition of .[49]
Complex numbers a + bi can also be represented by 2 × 2matrices that have the form
Here the entries a and b are real numbers. As the sum and product of two such matrices is again of this form, these matrices form a
subring of the ring of 2 × 2 matrices.
A simple computation shows that the map
is a
ring isomorphism from the field of complex numbers to the ring of these matrices, proving that these matrices form a field. This isomorphism associates the square of the absolute value of a complex number with the
determinant of the corresponding matrix, and the conjugate of a complex number with the
transpose of the matrix.
The geometric description of the multiplication of complex numbers can also be expressed in terms of
rotation matrices by using this correspondence between complex numbers and such matrices. The action of the matrix on a vector (x, y) corresponds to the multiplication of x + iy by a + ib. In particular, if the determinant is 1, there is a real number t such that the matrix has the form
In this case, the action of the matrix on vectors and the multiplication by the complex number are both the
rotation of the angle t.
The study of functions of a complex variable is known as complex analysis and has enormous practical use in
applied mathematics as well as in other branches of mathematics. Often, the most natural proofs for statements in
real analysis or even
number theory employ techniques from complex analysis (see
prime number theorem for an example).
Unlike real functions, which are commonly represented as two-dimensional graphs,
complex functions have four-dimensional graphs and may usefully be illustrated by color-coding a
three-dimensional graph to suggest four dimensions, or by animating the complex function's dynamic transformation of the complex plane.
Convergence
The notions of
convergent series and
continuous functions in (real) analysis have natural analogs in complex analysis. A sequence of complex numbers is said to
converge if and only if its real and imaginary parts do. This is equivalent to the
(ε, δ)-definition of limits, where the absolute value of real numbers is replaced by the one of complex numbers. From a more abstract point of view, , endowed with the
metric
for any real number φ. This formula is a quick consequence of general basic facts about convergent power series and the definitions of the involved functions as power series. As a special case, this includes
Euler's identity
Complex logarithm
For any positive real number t, there is a unique real number x such that . This leads to the definition of the
natural logarithm as the
inverse of the exponential function. The situation is different for complex numbers, since
by the functional equation and Euler's identity.
For example, eiπ = e3iπ = −1 , so both iπ and 3iπ are possible values for the complex logarithm of −1.
In general, given any non-zero complex number w, any number z solving the equation
is called a
complex logarithm of w, denoted . It can be shown that these numbers satisfy
where arg is the
argument defined
above, and ln the (real)
natural logarithm. As arg is a
multivalued function, unique only up to a multiple of 2π, log is also multivalued. The
principal value of log is often taken by restricting the imaginary part to the
interval(−π, π]. This leads to the complex logarithm being a
bijective function taking values in the strip (that is denoted in the above illustration)
If is not a non-positive real number (a positive or a non-real number), the resulting
principal value of the complex logarithm is obtained with −π < φ < π. It is an
analytic function outside the negative real numbers, but it cannot be prolongated to a function that is continuous at any negative real number , where the principal value is ln z = ln(−z) + iπ.[h]
and is multi-valued, except when ω is an integer. For ω = 1 / n, for some natural number n, this recovers the non-uniqueness of nth roots mentioned above. If z > 0 is real (and ω an arbitrary complex number), one has a preferred choice of , the real logarithm, which can be used to define a preferred exponential function.
Complex numbers, unlike real numbers, do not in general satisfy the unmodified power and logarithm identities, particularly when naïvely treated as single-valued functions; see
failure of power and logarithm identities. For example, they do not satisfy
Both sides of the equation are multivalued by the definition of complex exponentiation given here, and the values on the left are a subset of those on the right.
Complex sine and cosine
The series defining the real trigonometric functions
sine and
cosine, as well as the
hyperbolic functions sinh and cosh, also carry over to complex arguments without change. For the other trigonometric and hyperbolic functions, such as
tangent, things are slightly more complicated, as the defining series do not converge for all complex values. Therefore, one must define them either in terms of sine, cosine and exponential, or, equivalently, by using the method of
analytic continuation.
Holomorphic functions
A function → is called
holomorphic or complex differentiable at a point if the limit
exists (in which case it is denoted by ). This mimics the definition for real differentiable functions, except that all quantities are complex numbers. Loosely speaking, the freedom of approaching in different directions imposes a much stronger condition than being (real) differentiable. For example, the function
is differentiable as a function , but is not complex differentiable.
A real differentiable function is complex differentiable
if and only if it satisfies the
Cauchy–Riemann equations, which are sometimes abbreviated as
Complex analysis shows some features not apparent in real analysis. For example, the
identity theorem asserts that two holomorphic functions f and g agree if they agree on an arbitrarily small
open subset of .
Meromorphic functions, functions that can locally be written as f(z)/(z − z0)n with a holomorphic function f, still share some of the features of holomorphic functions. Other functions have
essential singularities, such as sin(1/z) at z = 0.
Three
non-collinear points in the plane determine the
shape of the triangle . Locating the points in the complex plane, this shape of a triangle may be expressed by complex arithmetic as
The shape of a triangle will remain the same, when the complex plane is transformed by translation or dilation (by an
affine transformation), corresponding to the intuitive notion of shape, and describing
similarity. Thus each triangle is in a
similarity class of triangles with the same shape.[50]
Fractal geometry
The
Mandelbrot set is a popular example of a fractal formed on the complex plane. It is defined by plotting every location where iterating the sequence does not
diverge when
iterated infinitely. Similarly,
Julia sets have the same rules, except where remains constant.
Triangles
Every triangle has a unique
Steiner inellipse – an
ellipse inside the triangle and tangent to the midpoints of the three sides of the triangle. The
foci of a triangle's Steiner inellipse can be found as follows, according to
Marden's theorem:[51][52] Denote the triangle's vertices in the complex plane as a = xA + yAi, b = xB + yBi, and c = xC + yCi. Write the
cubic equation, take its derivative, and equate the (quadratic) derivative to zero. Marden's theorem says that the solutions of this equation are the complex numbers denoting the locations of the two foci of the Steiner inellipse.
Algebraic number theory
As mentioned above, any nonconstant polynomial equation (in complex coefficients) has a solution in . A fortiori, the same is true if the equation has rational coefficients. The roots of such equations are called
algebraic numbers – they are a principal object of study in
algebraic number theory. Compared to , the algebraic closure of , which also contains all algebraic numbers, has the advantage of being easily understandable in geometric terms. In this way, algebraic methods can be used to study geometric questions and vice versa. With algebraic methods, more specifically applying the machinery of
field theory to the
number field containing
roots of unity, it can be shown that it is not possible to construct a regular
nonagonusing only compass and straightedge – a purely geometric problem.
Another example is the
Gaussian integers; that is, numbers of the form x + iy, where x and y are integers, which can be used to classify
sums of squares.
Analytic number theory studies numbers, often integers or rationals, by taking advantage of the fact that they can be regarded as complex numbers, in which analytic methods can be used. This is done by encoding number-theoretic information in complex-valued functions. For example, the
Riemann zeta functionζ(s) is related to the distribution of
prime numbers.
Improper integrals
In applied fields, complex numbers are often used to compute certain real-valued
improper integrals, by means of complex-valued functions. Several methods exist to do this; see
methods of contour integration.
Dynamic equations
In
differential equations, it is common to first find all complex roots r of the
characteristic equation of a
linear differential equation or equation system and then attempt to solve the system in terms of base functions of the form f(t) = ert. Likewise, in
difference equations, the complex roots r of the characteristic equation of the difference equation system are used, to attempt to solve the system in terms of base functions of the form f(t) = rt.
Linear algebra
Since is algebraically closed, any non-empty complex
square matrix has at least one (complex)
eigenvalue. By comparison, real matrices do not always have real eigenvalues, for example
rotation matrices (for rotations of the plane for angles other than 0° or 180°) leave no direction fixed, and therefore do not have any real eigenvalue. The existence of (complex) eigenvalues, and the ensuing existence of
eigendecomposition is a useful tool for computing matrix powers and
matrix exponentials.
In the root locus method, it is important whether zeros and poles are in the left or right half planes, that is, have real part greater than or less than zero. If a linear, time-invariant (LTI) system has poles that are
If a system has zeros in the right half plane, it is a
nonminimum phase system.
Signal analysis
Complex numbers are used in
signal analysis and other fields for a convenient description for periodically varying signals. For given real functions representing actual physical quantities, often in terms of sines and cosines, corresponding complex functions are considered of which the real parts are the original quantities. For a
sine wave of a given
frequency, the absolute value |z| of the corresponding z is the
amplitude and the
argumentarg z is the
phase.
If
Fourier analysis is employed to write a given real-valued signal as a sum of periodic functions, these periodic functions are often written as complex-valued functions of the form
and
where ω represents the
angular frequency and the complex number A encodes the phase and amplitude as explained above.
In electrical engineering, the imaginary unit is denoted by j, to avoid confusion with I, which is generally in use to denote
electric current, or, more particularly, i, which is generally in use to denote instantaneous electric current.
Because the
voltage in an AC
circuit is oscillating, it can be represented as
To obtain the measurable quantity, the real part is taken:
The complex-valued signal V(t) is called the
analytic representation of the real-valued, measurable signal v(t).
[53]
In
special and
general relativity, some formulas for the metric on
spacetime become simpler if one takes the time component of the spacetime continuum to be imaginary. (This approach is no longer standard in classical relativity, but is
used in an essential way in
quantum field theory.) Complex numbers are essential to
spinors, which are a generalization of the
tensors used in relativity.
Characterizations, generalizations and related notions
Algebraic characterization
The field has the following three properties:
First, it has
characteristic 0. This means that 1 + 1 + ⋯ + 1 ≠ 0 for any number of summands (all of which equal one).
It can be shown that any field having these properties is
isomorphic (as a field) to For example, the
algebraic closure of the field of the
p-adic number also satisfies these three properties, so these two fields are isomorphic (as fields, but not as topological fields).[54] Also, is isomorphic to the field of complex
Puiseux series. However, specifying an isomorphism requires the
axiom of choice. Another consequence of this algebraic characterization is that contains many proper subfields that are isomorphic to .
Characterization as a topological field
The preceding characterization of describes only the algebraic aspects of That is to say, the properties of
nearness and
continuity, which matter in areas such as
analysis and
topology, are not dealt with. The following description of as a
topological field (that is, a field that is equipped with a
topology, which allows the notion of convergence) does take into account the topological properties. contains a subset P (namely the set of positive real numbers) of nonzero elements satisfying the following three conditions:
P is closed under addition, multiplication and taking inverses.
If x and y are distinct elements of P, then either x − y or y − x is in P.
If S is any nonempty subset of P, then S + P = x + P for some x in
Moreover, has a nontrivial
involutiveautomorphismx ↦ x* (namely the complex conjugation), such that x x* is in P for any nonzero x in
Any field F with these properties can be endowed with a topology by taking the sets B(x, p) = { y | p − (y − x)(y − x)* ∈ P } as a
base, where x ranges over the field and p ranges over P. With this topology F is isomorphic as a topological field to
The only
connectedlocally compacttopological fields are and This gives another characterization of as a topological field, because can be distinguished from because the nonzero complex numbers are
connected, while the nonzero real numbers are not.[55]
The process of extending the field of reals to is an instance of the Cayley–Dickson construction. Applying this construction iteratively to then yields the
quaternions, the
octonions and the
sedenions.[56] This construction turns out to diminish the structural properties of the involved number systems.
Unlike the reals, is not an
ordered field, that is to say, it is not possible to define a relation z1 < z2 that is compatible with the addition and multiplication. In fact, in any ordered field, the square of any element is necessarily positive, so i2 = −1 precludes the existence of an
ordering on [57] Passing from to the quaternions loses commutativity, while the octions (additionally to not being commutative) fail to be associative. The reals, complex numbers, quaternions and octonions are all
normed division algebras over . By
Hurwitz's theorem they are the only ones; the
sedenions, the next step in the Cayley–Dickson construction, fail to have this structure.
The Cayley–Dickson construction is closely related to the
regular representation of thought of as an -
algebra (an -vector space with a multiplication), with respect to the basis (1, i). This means the following: the -linear map
for some fixed complex number w can be represented by a 2 × 2 matrix (once a basis has been chosen). With respect to the basis (1, i), this matrix is
that is, the one mentioned in the section on matrix representation of complex numbers above. While this is a
linear representation of in the 2 × 2 real matrices, it is not the only one. Any matrix
has the property that its square is the negative of the identity matrix: J2 = −I. Then
is also isomorphic to the field and gives an alternative complex structure on This is generalized by the notion of a
linear complex structure.
Hypercomplex numbers also generalize and For example, this notion contains the
split-complex numbers, which are elements of the ring (as opposed to for complex numbers). In this ring, the equation a2 = 1 has four solutions.
The field is the completion of the field of
rational numbers, with respect to the usual
absolute valuemetric. Other choices of
metrics on lead to the fields of
p-adic numbers (for any
prime numberp), which are thereby analogous to . There are no other nontrivial ways of completing than and by
Ostrowski's theorem. The algebraic closures of still carry a norm, but (unlike ) are not complete with respect to it. The completion of turns out to be algebraically closed. By analogy, the field is called p-adic complex numbers.
The fields and their finite field extensions, including are called
local fields.
^Solomentsev 2001: "The plane whose points are identified with the elements of is called the complex plane ... The complete geometric interpretation of complex numbers and operations on them appeared first in the work of C. Wessel (1799). The geometric representation of complex numbers, sometimes called the 'Argand diagram', came into use after the publication in 1806 and 1814 of papers by J.R. Argand, who rediscovered, largely independently, the findings of Wessel".
^In the literature the imaginary unit often precedes the radical sign, even when preceded itself by an integer.[23]
^It has been proved that imaginary numbers necessarily appear in the cubic formula when the equation has three real, different roots by Pierre Laurent Wantzel in 1843, Vincenzo Mollame in 1890, Otto Hölder in 1891, and Adolf Kneser in 1892. Paolo Ruffini also provided an incomplete proof in 1799.——S. Confalonieri (2015)[25]
^Argand 1814, p. 204 defines the modulus of a complex number but he doesn't name it: "Dans ce qui suit, les accens, indifféremment placés, seront employés pour indiquer la grandeur absolue des quantités qu'ils affectent; ainsi, si , et étant réels, on devra entendre que ou ." [In what follows, accent marks, wherever they're placed, will be used to indicate the absolute size of the quantities to which they're assigned; thus if , and being real, one should understand that or .] Argand 1814, p. 208 defines and names the module and the direction factor of a complex number: "... pourrait être appelé le module de , et représenterait la grandeur absolue de la ligne , tandis que l'autre facteur, dont le module est l'unité, en représenterait la direction." [... could be called the module of and would represent the absolute size of the line (Argand represented complex numbers as vectors.) whereas the other factor [namely, ], whose module is unity [1], would represent its direction.]
^ Gauss writes:[45]"Quemadmodum scilicet arithmetica sublimior in quaestionibus hactenus pertractatis inter solos numeros integros reales versatur, ita theoremata circa residua biquadratica tunc tantum in summa simplicitate ac genuina venustate resplendent, quando campus arithmeticae ad quantitates imaginarias extenditur, ita ut absque restrictione ipsius obiectum constituant numeri formae a + bi, denotantibus i, pro more quantitatem imaginariam , atque a, b indefinite omnes numeros reales integros inter - et +." [Of course just as the higher arithmetic has been investigated so far in problems only among real integer numbers, so theorems regarding biquadratic residues then shine in greatest simplicity and genuine beauty, when the field of arithmetic is extended to imaginary quantities, so that, without restrictions on it, numbers of the form a + bi — i denoting by convention the imaginary quantity , and the variables a, b [denoting] all real integer numbers between and — constitute an object.]
^Gauss:[46]"Tales numeros vocabimus numeros integros complexos, ita quidem, ut reales complexis non opponantur, sed tamquam species sub his contineri censeantur." [We will call such numbers [namely, numbers of the form a + bi ] "complex integer numbers", so that real [numbers] are regarded not as the opposite of complex [numbers] but [as] a type [of number that] is, so to speak, contained within them.]
^Gauss:[47]"Productum numeri complexi per numerum ipsi conjunctum utriusque normam vocamus. Pro norma itaque numeri realis, ipsius quadratum habendum est." [We call a "norm" the product of a complex number [for example, a + ib ] with its conjugate [a - ib ]. Therefore the square of a real number should be regarded as its norm.]
^However for another inverse function of the complex exponential function (and not the above defined principal value), the branch cut could be taken at any other
ray thru the origin.
References
^For an extensive account of the history of "imaginary" numbers, from initial skepticism to ultimate acceptance, see
Bourbaki, Nicolas (1998). "Foundations of Mathematics § Logic: Set theory". Elements of the History of Mathematics. Springer. pp. 18–24.
^"Complex numbers, as much as reals, and perhaps even more, find a unity with nature that is truly remarkable. It is as though Nature herself is as impressed by the scope and consistency of the complex-number system as we are ourselves, and has entrusted to these numbers the precise operations of her world at its minutest scales.",
Penrose 2005, pp.72–73.
^
abWeisstein, Eric W.
"Complex Number". mathworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
^Campbell, George Ashley (April 1911).
"Cisoidal oscillations"(PDF). Proceedings of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. XXX (1–6).
American Institute of Electrical Engineers: 789–824 [Fig. 13 on p. 810].
doi:
10.1109/PAIEE.1911.6659711.
S2CID51647814. Retrieved 24 June 2023. p. 789: The use of i (or Greek ı) for the imaginary symbol is nearly universal in mathematical work, which is a very strong reason for retaining it in the applications of mathematics in electrical engineering. Aside, however, from the matter of established conventions and facility of reference to mathematical literature, the substitution of the symbol j is objectionable because of the vector terminology with which it has become associated in engineering literature, and also because of the confusion resulting from the divided practice of engineering writers, some using j for +i and others using j for −i.
^Brown, James Ward; Churchill, Ruel V. (1996). Complex variables and applications (6 ed.). New York, USA:
McGraw-Hill. p. 2.
ISBN978-0-07-912147-9. p. 2: In electrical engineering, the letter j is used instead of i.
^
abConfalonieri, Sara (2015). The Unattainable Attempt to Avoid the Casus Irreducibilis for Cubic Equations: Gerolamo Cardano's De Regula Aliza. Springer. pp. 15–16 (note 26).
ISBN978-3658092757.
^Euler, Leonard (1748).
Introductio in Analysin Infinitorum [Introduction to the Analysis of the Infinite] (in Latin). Vol. 1. Lucerne, Switzerland: Marc Michel Bosquet & Co. p. 104.
^Hardy, G.H.; Wright, E.M. (2000) [1938]. An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers.
OUP Oxford. p. 189 (fourth edition).
ISBN978-0-19-921986-5.
^Jeff Miller (21 September 1999).
"MODULUS". Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics (M). Archived from the original on 3 October 1999.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (
link)
^Hankel, Hermann (1867).
Vorlesungen über die complexen Zahlen und ihre Functionen [Lectures About the Complex Numbers and Their Functions] (in German). Vol. 1. Leipzig, [Germany]: Leopold Voss. p. 71. From p. 71: "Wir werden den Factor (cos φ + i sin φ) haüfig den Richtungscoefficienten nennen." (We will often call the factor (cos φ + i sin φ) the "coefficient of direction".)
Press, W.H.; Teukolsky, S.A.; Vetterling, W.T.; Flannery, B.P. (2007).
"Section 5.5 Complex Arithmetic". Numerical Recipes: The art of scientific computing (3rd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
ISBN978-0-521-88068-8. Archived from
the original on 13 March 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2011.
Nahin, Paul J. (1998). An Imaginary Tale: The Story of . Princeton University Press.
ISBN978-0-691-02795-1. — A gentle introduction to the history of complex numbers and the beginnings of complex analysis.
Ebbinghaus, H. D.; Hermes, H.; Hirzebruch, F.; Koecher, M.; Mainzer, K.; Neukirch, J.; Prestel, A.; Remmert, R. (1991). Numbers (hardcover ed.). Springer.
ISBN978-0-387-97497-2. — An advanced perspective on the historical development of the concept of number.