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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

'A number that becomes negative when squared' is an imaginary number, which is used as part of the wave function that represents a pure state in quantum mechanics, which is a field of physics. It has ...

The imaginary number takes mathematics to another dimension. It was discovered in sixteenth century Italy at a time when being a mathematician was akin to being a modern day rock star, when there was ...

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 ...