Welcome to the presentation on i and imaginary numbers.

So let me just start out with a definition.

i is equal to the square root of negative one.

Or to view it another way, you could say that i squared

is equal to negative one.

Now why is this special?

Well, we knew or we've learned that any number when you

square it is equal to a positive number, right?

If I had negative one times negative one, that

equals positive one.

You don't have to write the positive every time but that

equal positive one and so does one times one, that

equals positive one.

So if we think about the square root of a number, so far all

we've learned is taking the square roots of positive

numbers, and that makes sense to us because the notion of a

square root of a negative number didn't really

exist until now.

So what we've done is we've set this definition that the number

i, and i isn't a variable, it's an actual number.

It's value is equal to the square root of negative one.

Now I won't go into all of the philosophical musings about

whether i, as a number i, or any imaginary numbers

actually exist.

Maybe I'll make another presentation on that.

But they exist enough to be very useful to many

engineers and physicists.

So I'll leave you with that, and I'll also just hint at --

well, I won't go into the whole e to the i pi

equals negative one.

But that blows my mind, but I won't go into that.

And when you think about whether i really exists, you

should also think about whether anything really exists.

So, I've diversed for too long, so let's get back to what I was

saying before. i is equal to the square root of

negative one, and i squared equals negative one.

So let's think about the implications of this.

If I were to say -- well, i to the first power, just like

anything else, is equal to itself, right?

i squared, I've already said using this definition, i

squared is equal to negative one.

i to the third power, well that would just equal i

squared times i, right?

And i squared is negative one, so it would be negative one times i.

And that just equals negative i.

And i to the fourth would equal i to the third times i.

I'm just using my exponent rules here.

Well i to the third is negative i times i, right? i to the

third is negative i, and then we just kept that i.

Well what's negative i times i?

Well that's the same thing as negative one times

i times i, right?

And what's i times i?

Well, the definition.

i times i, i squared, is equal to negative one.

So that equals negative one times negative one, which equals one.

Interesting.

Let me clean this up a little bit.

Actually let me start with i to the zero power.

i to the zero power, well we know anything to the zero

power is equal to one.

So we'll keep that -- that still equals one.

i to the first power is equal to i.

i squared by definition is equal to negative one.

i to the third power, I just showed you, is equal to

negative i, and that makes sense because that's

just i squared times i.

And i to the fourth power equaled one again.

If I did i to the fifth power, well that's just equal to i to

the fourth power times i, right?

I'll write that down, i to the fourth times i.

i to the fourth is equal to one, right?

This is equal to one, so one times i is equal to i.

Do you see a pattern here?

i to the zero power equals one.

i to the negative one power equals i.

i squared is equal to negative one.

i to the third power equals negative i.

i the fourth equals one again.

So i to the fourth equals i to zero, and i to the one power

is equal to i to the fifth.

I think you'll find out that i to the zero, and you could try

this out if you don't believe me, i to the zero is equal to i

to the fourth, which equals i to the eighth, which equals i

to the twelfth, I think you see the pattern.

Any multiple of four equals one.

And i to the first equals i to the fifth, equals i to the

ninth equals i to the thirteenth, equals i.

So that's i to any power that is a multiple

of four plus one, right?

Because five is equal to four plus one, nine is equal to eight plus one.

And we could do a similar pattern. i squared is equal to

i to the sixth, equals i to the tenth, and so on, and

that equals negative one.

And finally i to the third is equal to i to the seventh,

which equals i to the eleventh, and so on, equals negative i.

So why is this useful?

We see a pattern.

It's a cycle of four.

In this pattern, if we look at this, we can use

this to determine what i to any power is.

So if I were to ask you what i to the hundredth power is,

well, you could just work it out, you could say, well that's

just equal to i times i to the ninety-ninth and

so far so down.

But if we use the cycle, we see that hundred is

a multiple of four, right?

four times twenty-five is one hundred.

So i to the hundredth will fall into this category,

this first one.

It's a multiple of four.

So we know that i to the hundredth power is equal to one.

Similarly, if I said i to the hundred and one power, that's

going to equal i, right?

Because that equals one hundred plus one.

So it puts you into this category.

Equal to a multiple of four, one hundred is a multiple of four, and one hundred and
one

is a multiple of four plus one.

i to the hundred and second power, similarly would

equal negative one.

i to the hundred and third power would equal negative i.

I hope you understand what I'm doing here, and all I did is I

defined i as the square root of negative one, and then I

kept multiplying i to figure out a pattern.

I said i to the zero equals one, i to the first equals i, i

squared equals negative one, i to the third equals negative i,

and i to the fourth equals one again.

And the pattern repeated itself.

And then I used that pattern to be able to figure out i to any

power, even it's a very high number.

So a very simple way to think about it is if I had i to the

three hundred and twenty three.

What I do is I say if I were to divide four into three hundred and twenty-three,

what's the remainder?

Well, I know four goes into three hundred and twenty, right?

four times eighty is three hundred and twenty.

So I know that when I divide four into three hundred and twenty-three, so four goes
into three hundred and twenty-three eighty

times with a remainder of three, right?

And the remainder is what we care about.

And this number is actually called a modulus.

Maybe I'll do another module on modulus -- it's very important

actually in computer programming.

But since we know that when you divide this exponent by four the

remainder is three, we can say that this is the same thing as i to

the third, which we've learned is negative i.

Similarly, if I said i to the five hundred and second

power, well I know five hundred is divisible by four, right?

four times one hundred and twenty-five is five hundred.

So the remainder is two if I were divide it by four.

So I could say that this is the same thing as i squared.

And i squared we learned by definition is negative one.

If I were to ask you i to the thirty-seven?

We know thirty-six was divisible by four, so the remainder is one.

So it would be i to the one, which equals i.

Hopefully that gives you an indication of what i is.

It might have been confusing the first time because we're

dealing with a number that's "imaginary," and I'm teaching

the cycle property of it.

What you might want to do is review the video again, but

then after that you could just try the module on i, which

essentially just keeps working you through this

type of problem.

I hope you have fun.

Bye.