Complex numbers are numbers that consist of two parts — a real number and an imaginary number. Complex numbers are the building blocks of more intricate math, such as algebra. They can be applied to ...

Real and imaginary: The time-dependent Schrödinger equation formulated using complex numbers. (Courtesy: iStock/piranka) Complex numbers are essential to achieve the most accurate quantum-mechanical ...

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 ...

Have you ever sat in a math classroom and wondered, “When will I ever use this?” You might have asked yourself this question when you first encountered “imaginary” numbers, and with good reason: What ...

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.

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 ...

The Riemann hypothesis is the most important open question in number theory—if not all of mathematics. It has occupied experts for more than 160 years. And the problem appeared both in mathematician ...