Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Imaginary numbers push the boundaries of calculus and other branches of math. Hill Street Studios/DigitalVision via Getty Images ...

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.

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 ...

Real and imaginary: The time-dependent Schrödinger equation formulated using complex numbers. (Courtesy: iStock/piranka) Complex numbers are essential to achieve the most accurate quantum-mechanical ...

If you have ever read advanced textbooks or papers about electronics, you may have been surprised to see the use of complex numbers used in the analysis of AC circuits. A complex number has two parts: ...

Many people have been taught that "$${\sqrt{-1}}$$ cannot be calculated."However, to be more precise, this means "there is no answer within the range of real numbers." If we expand the world of ...

All non-trivial zeros of the zeta function have real part one-half. Unfortunately, all those negative even numbers are trivial zeros. So … where are these non-trivial ones? To answer that, I must take ...

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, ...