3 ms·
> I think it's because of the name. indeed. the name is terrible; causes a lot of folks consternation, or tricks them into thinking strangely about the complex
by sigstoat 5y ago
> I think it's because of the name.
indeed. the name is terrible; causes a lot of folks consternation, or tricks them into thinking strangely about the complex numbers.
anyone happen to know of any languages where they're not referred to as "imaginary", or anything that implies they're less "real"?
- orra 5y agoInteresting question. I had a scan of the articles in other languages, on Wikipedia. Almost all the Latin alphabet languages use a variant of 'imaginary'. Icelandic appears to be an exception, where it means cross-number. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/þvertala#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/þvertala#Etymology (I don't know non-Latin alphabets I can't tell you anything about them.)