As imaginary numbers (square root is negative) are useful, is there any mathematical use for an imaginary number that, when multiplied by zero, gives a non-zero result?

niktemadur@lemmy.world · 3 days ago

As imaginary numbers (square root is negative) are useful, is there any mathematical use for an imaginary number that, when multiplied by zero, gives a non-zero result?

haroldstork@lemm.ee · 3 days ago

One of the biggest misconceptions of imaginary numbers is that “i = √-1” Well… it does equal that, but the bigger truth is that “i^2 = -1”. We don’t care what the actual value of i is, we’re imagining a number who’s square is -1 and all the awesome math that comes from that is the complex numbers.