The rule of our daily lives is that "multiplying the same number by itself (squaring it) always results in a positive number.

Yes, those of us who studied mathematics and physics after high school are familiar with the values $${i = \sqrt{-1}}$$ and ...

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.

To a nonmathematician, having the letter "i" represent a number that does not quite exist and is "imaginary" can be hard to wrap your head around. If you open your mind to this way of thinking, ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: A team of German physicists has built a fully working version of quantum mechanics that uses only real numbers. Complex numbers, built from a ...

Imaginary numbers might seem like unicorns and goblins — interesting but irrelevant to reality. But for describing matter at its roots, imaginary numbers turn out to be essential. They seem to be ...