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.
§CQ.1 THE FIRST GREAT ADVANCE in algebra after the Middle Ages was the general solution of the cubic equation, immediately followed by a solution for the quartic. I tell the full story in the next ...
All kinds of parameters can be described using complex numbers of the form real + j * imaginary. The numerical values of real and imaginary can vary over very wide ranges. Trying to graph them ...