this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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submitted 3 months ago by BonesOfTheMoon to c/memes
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[–] affiliate 8 points 3 months ago

the name seems to be an unfortunate choice that stems from their historical usage as “a means to an end”. i.e, they were first used as part of a method to find some solutions to cubic equations. this method would require algebraic manipulations of complex numbers, but the ultimate goal was to discover a real root. the complex roots would be discarded once a real root was found (if it existed).

the wikipedia article attributes the name to Descartes:

… sometimes only imaginary, that is one can imagine as many as I said in each equation, but sometimes there exists no quantity that matches that which we imagine.

which i think helps to highlight how skeptical the people at that time were about the existence of the “imaginary” numbers.

source: memories of my first complex analysis class, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number#History

i’d strongly recommend reading the history section of that wikipedia page to anyone interested in the topic, it has some pretty fun history