![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vakkotaurQ: What is the square root of negative three and why is it irrelevant?
A: The square root of -3 is...
0 + 1.73205080757i if you are a mathematician
0 + 1.73205080757j if you are an engineer
And this is only as irrelevant as you care to consider it. The square root of -3 by itself is pretty meaningless. Were it a description of something (a reactance, perhaps) then it would have meaning.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 29 Sep 2005 01:05 (UTC)negative numbers
Date: 29 Sep 2005 02:36 (UTC)Re: negative numbers
Date: 29 Sep 2005 02:57 (UTC)Mathematician use "i" to indicate imaginary numbers or the imaginary component of complex numbers. Engineers (at least electrical, don't know about others for sure) find the concept of complex numbers useful but indicate the imaginary component of them with "j" so as not to potentially cause confusion with "i" used for other things and perhaps to keep from having an un-dotted "i" look like a "1" An un-dotted "j" should still have a telltale hook at the bottom. The "i" and the "j" mean the same thing, it's just a matter of whose convention you follow.
Re: negative numbers
Date: 29 Sep 2005 16:33 (UTC)An advanced mathematician looking at engineering documents would be quite confused as to how quaternions got in there. :)