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If "i" wasn't called "imaginary" I don't know if anyone would find it weird when it appeared in physics. In many ways i is as weird as negative numbers, irrati
by tvst 3y ago
If "i" wasn't called "imaginary" I don't know if anyone would find it weird when it appeared in physics.
In many ways i is as weird as negative numbers, irrational numbers, and transcendental numbers. But we're somehow ok with all of those.
(By the way, I don't mean to imply Scott Aaronson finds complex numbers weird. He's just wondering why not other systems, and even mentions quaternions as an alternative — which could be called weird in their own right... So in a sense I'm attacking a straw man.)
- jojobas 3y agoNegative, irrational and transcendental numbers are all on the same number line. Getting out into a plane (and losing something as important as the order relation) is radically different from figuring out what other numbers are on a line.
- whatshisface 3y agoOrder relations don't appear in QM.
- jojobas 3y agoThey do, a lot, just not about wave-function amplitudes.
- whatshisface 3y agoThey don't appear in the mechanics, they appear in the things we say about the mechanics.