If standard quantum theory holds up, imaginary numbers are critical. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Imaginary numbers are ...

Mathematicians were disturbed, centuries ago, to find that calculating the properties of certain curves demanded the seemingly impossible: numbers that, when multiplied by themselves, turn negative.

To a nonmathematician, having the letter “i” represent a number that does not quite exist and is “imaginary” can be hard to ...

A century ago, the strange behavior of atoms and elementary particles led physicists to formulate a new theory of nature. That theory, quantum mechanics, found immediate success, proving its worth ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Computer engineers at Duke University have demonstrated that using complex numbers—numbers with both real and imaginary components—can play an integral part in securing artificial ...

Several years ago one of us, Toni, asked another of us, Marco, to come to his office at the Institute of Photonic Sciences, a large research center in Castelldefels near Barcelona. “There is a problem ...

An international team of researchers shows through a concrete theoretical experiment that the prediction by standard complex quantum theory cannot be expressed by its real counterpart and ratifies its ...

Imaginary numbers are necessary to accurately describe reality, two new studies have suggested. Imaginary numbers are what you get when you take the square root of a negative number, and they have ...

William Ross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...