whizzball1

Myriad Reality

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You shouldn't make such final statements about concepts that aren't quite true, or are argued to be false.

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As a concept, imaginary numbers don't exist. In the world, numbers are meant to represent something. Negatives are useful, irrationals are useful, positive integers are useful, but imaginary numbers do not exist in any recess of our world.

@Etcetera

It's probably called that just because it's at the intersection of the two number lines.

Then we're disagreeing because we're talking about different definitions of "existence". You're talking about existence when it comes to usefulness in the real world, but I'm talking about existence as "it's actually a thing that we use in mathematics for stuff".

Wait, after a bit of research, it looks like we do use imaginary numbers in the real world.
"There is, for example, a differential equation, with coefficients like the a, b, and c in the quadratic formula, that models how electrical circuits or forced spring/damper systems behave. The movement of the shock absorber of a car as it goes over a bump is an example of the latter. The behavior of the differential equations depends upon whether the roots of a certain quadratic are complex or real. If they are complex, then certain behaviors can be expected. These are often just the solutions that one wants."

And then of course, there are countless physicists who seriously consider and actively look for particles that move faster than light--and according to Einstein's equation for mass relative to the speed of light, the mass of those particles is imaginary.

EDIT: As an interesting note, the real numbers are only called the real numbers because the imaginary numbers are called imaginary.

Myriad Reality

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I actually have to disagree with you, there.

@Etcetera

Oh? I mean, either way, if 0 is an imaginary number, the imaginary numbers aren't called imaginary numbers because they don't exist.

Myriad Reality

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"Many other mathematicians were slow to adopt the use of imaginary numbers, including René Descartes, who wrote about them in his La Géométrie, where the term imaginary was used and meant to be derogatory."

They don't exist in real life, but in the realm of mathematics, they exist just as much as anything infinite or negative or irrational does. Negative numbers don't exist in real life. You can't have less than nothing. You can't have an irrational number of anything.

@whizzball1

Just to top it off, 0 is both real and imaginary.

Myriad Reality

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To your second example, it's because said numbers don't exist.

@Etcetera

"Many other mathematicians were slow to adopt the use of imaginary numbers, including René Descartes, who wrote about them in his La Géométrie, where the term imaginary was used and meant to be derogatory."

They don't exist in real life, but in the realm of mathematics, they exist just as much as anything infinite or negative or irrational does. Negative numbers don't exist in real life. You can't have less than nothing. You can't have an irrational number of anything.

Myriad Reality

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Not according to math society. Creativity has no place in it.

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Ew, console.

@Etcetera

According to my maths book, most of what comes after calculus is all about creativity, and not rigorous standards. It says that the greatest proofs were most creative, and many maths concepts came from people bucking the predefined trend and making stuff up. Then again, the person who made up the irrational (notice, they're called irrational) numbers was killed by the Pythagoreans for figuring it out, and the imaginary numbers were, well, called imaginary even after they were accepted.

*high five*

Myriad Reality

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It's too bad you can't use that anymore.

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There's a very specific formula in school.

@Etcetera

That's silly. Proofs are supposed to be creative, not follow a predefined path.

Myriad Reality

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Because they would totally know. Regardless, nobody likes proof. They're just so much writing.

@Etcetera

Well this one was more of a "take the information we know is true, do maths to it, and arrive at the equation we want to prove."

Myriad Reality

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Proofs suck.

@Etcetera

It was pretty fun, actually. And the book told me that I was in the top 1% of algebra students if I came up with the proof without looking at the answer, which is kind of silly so I laughed.

Myriad Reality

So today I learned about the formulae for graphing ellipses and circles, was shown the proof for the latter, and had to work out the proof for the former with only a few pieces of starting information. Tomorrow I do parabolas! =D

Myriad Reality

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Well first of all, a stick of bug spray won't kill a guy. Second of all, all of that is improbable.

@Legend

stahp ruinng my funy story u meenie

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What if the driver was already poisoned and he happened to die after he licked the bug spray sticker because the poison finally kicked in and killed him. Then the fugitives, who are actually mimes who are acting as fugitives, come in with finger pistol and are silently talking to each other and are talking about a story that someone else told who was actually blind and mute. Boom. World class detective right here.

@Extra

lelelel