In spite of their name, “imaginary” numbers are as real as any other numbers, especially when it comes to hunting for lost treasure. For our first Insights puzzle of 2019, let’s go on a treasure hunt.

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.

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 ...

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 ...

Now, on to the subject of complex numbers. We have stayed away from this subject until now simply because we did not want to confuse things. Initially, it is easy to think of signals as “real valued.” ...