That is exactly what a person in 1500s would have said about e.g. imaginary number. In fact, this was the opinion on that at the time. > it was Rafael Bombelli

That is exactly what a person in 1500s would have said about e.g. imaginary number. In fact, this was the opinion on that at the time. > it was Rafael Bombelli who first set down the rules for multiplication of complex numbers in 1572. The concept had appeared in print earlier, such as in work by Gerolamo Cardano. At the time, imaginary numbers and negative numbers were poorly understood and were regarded by some as fictitious or useless, much as zero once was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number