3 ms·
Ask HN: Can quantum computers represent imaginary number i?
If the imaginary number i is defined as sqrt(-1)
and a quantum computer could have a number be simultaneously 1 and -1 due to superposition would that allow the square root to be solved by a quantum representation that is a combination of both?
- kadoban 7y agoA regular computer can already represent i. You can do complex math on them fine, it's just a matter of specifying what the bits mean and the rules they follow. I don't think that has anything to do with quantum or not, and I'm not sure what there is to "solve" about the sqrt(-1). We know what it is, it's just called i in the complex numbers (by definition). There's not another level to go down and explore. (in some other number systems, like the reals, sqrt(-1) just doesn't exist because no number times itself is -1).
- throwawaymath 7y agoFor example by representing numbers as pairs (a, b), where the real part is a and the imaginary part is b. Then: 1 = (1, 0) i = (0, 1) 2 + 3i = (2, 3) and so on.
- fortran77 7y agoFortran 77, my favorite programming language, supported imaginary numbers. Back in 1977 https://www.obliquity.com/computer/fortran/datatype.html https://www.obliquity.com/computer/fortran/datatype.html Fortran IV, did, too: http://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/courses/cs323/FORTRAN/fortran.html http://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/courses/cs323/FORTRAN/fortran.... ...in 1957.