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An imaginary number is the product of a real number and the imaginary unit i, [note 1] which is defined by its property i 2 = −1. [1] [2] The square of an imaginary number bi is −b 2. For example, 5i is an imaginary number, and its square is −25. The number zero is considered to be both real and imaginary. [3]
A real number a can be regarded as a complex number a + 0i, whose imaginary part is 0. A purely imaginary number bi is a complex number 0 + bi, whose real part is zero. It is common to write a + 0i = a, 0 + bi = bi, and a + (−b)i = a − bi; for example, 3 + (−4)i = 3 − 4i.
Square roots of negative numbers are called imaginary because in early-modern mathematics, only what are now called real numbers, obtainable by physical measurements or basic arithmetic, were considered to be numbers at all – even negative numbers were treated with skepticism – so the square root of a negative number was previously considered undefined or nonsensical.
L'Algebra by Rafael Bombelli: frontispiece of the Bologna edition of 1579. Rafael Bombelli (baptised on 20 January 1526; died 1572) [a] [1] [2] was an Italian mathematician.Born in Bologna, he is the author of a treatise on algebra and is a central figure in the understanding of imaginary numbers.
Argand diagram refers to a geometric plot of complex numbers as points z = x + iy using the horizontal x-axis as the real axis and the vertical y-axis as the imaginary axis. [3] Such plots are named after Jean-Robert Argand (1768–1822), although they were first described by Norwegian–Danish land surveyor and mathematician Caspar Wessel ...
Hippasus is sometimes credited with the discovery of the existence of irrational numbers, following which he was drowned at sea. Pythagoreans preached that all numbers could be expressed as the ratio of integers, and the discovery of irrational numbers is said to have shocked them. However, the evidence linking the discovery to Hippasus is unclear.
If the real part of a complex number is 0, then the number is called an imaginary number or is referred to as purely imaginary; if the imaginary part is 0, then the number is a real number. Thus the real numbers are a subset of the complex numbers.
Number systems have progressed from the use of fingers and tally marks, perhaps more than 40,000 years ago, to the use of sets of glyphs able to represent any conceivable number efficiently. The earliest known unambiguous notations for numbers emerged in Mesopotamia about 5000 or 6000 years ago.