1.

3 Complex Numbers
Among the operations of multiplication is that of squaring a number. This is the operation of
multiplying a number by itself. Thus 55 times 55 is 2525. We can ask for the inverse of this
squaring operation. This is an operation that acting on 2525 should give back 55. This
operation has a name: it is called the square root. A square root of 2525 is 55.

There are two wonderful complications here. The first is that -5−5 times -5−5 is also 2525,
so 2525 has two square roots, 55 and -5−5. And the same thing holds for any positive real
number. Any positive real number has two square roots.

The second complication is: what on earth is the square root of a negative number?

Well no real number has square that is -2−2 or -1−1 or minus anything positive.

When we found that subtraction, which is something of an inverse operation to addition, among
natural numbers led to non-natural numbers, we extended the natural numbers by defining
the integers to include both the natural numbers and their negatives and zero as well.

When we considered division, which is an inverse operation to multiplication, we extended our

numbers again to include fractions.

Well, to accommodate the inverse operation to squaring a number, we can also extend our
numbers to include new entities among which we can find square roots of negative numbers.

It turns out to do this we need only introduce one new number, usually designated as i, which is
defined to have square given by -1−1. In other words, we define the new number i to obey the
equation i * i = -1.i∗i=−1. We can get numbers whose squares are any other negative number,
say -5−5, by multiplying ii by an appropriate real number, here by the square root of 55. The
number ii is definitely not a real number, so we call it an imaginary number; this nomenclature
is in fact silly. Imaginary numbers have just as much existence in our imaginations as real
numbers have. Of course they are not natural numbers or integers or even fractions, or real
numbers at all.

It turns out that if we look at numbers of the form a + bia+bi where aa and bb are real

numbers, we get what are called the complex numbers, and we can define addition, subtraction
multiplication, division for these just as we can for rational or real numbers.

If you want to see what these rules are, click here.

So by numbers we will mean things like the rational numbers, the real numbers or complex
numbers, among which the operations of addition, subtraction multiplication and division are
defined and have all the standard properties.
By the way, we often represent complex numbers by points in the plane. Real numbers
correspond to points on the x-axis, and imaginary numbers can be considered points on the y-
axis. The number ii is a distance 11 above the origin on the y-axis. A general complex number
has real part that is described by its xx component and complex part described by
its yy component.