Complex Numbers Quotes

• The shortest path between two truths in the real domain passes through the complex domain.

  Jacques Hadamard

  Real, Math, Two

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• Complete knowledge of the nature of an analytic function must also include insight into its behavior for imaginary values of the arguments. Often the latter is indispensable even for a proper appreciation of the behavior of the function for real arguments. It is therefore essential that the original determination of the function concept be broadened to a domain of magnitudes which includes both the real and the imaginary quantities, on an equal footing, under the single designation complex numbers.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Appreciation, Determination, Real

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• There can be very little of present-day science and technology that is not dependent on complex numbers in one way or another.

  Keith Devlin

  Math, Technology, Numbers

  Keith J. Devlin (1988). “Mathematics: the new golden age”, Penguin Books

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• I tell you, with complex numbers you can do anything.

  John Derbyshire

  Numbers, Complexes, Can Do

  John Derbyshire (2003). “Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics”, p.159, Joseph Henry Press

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• Indeed, nowadays no electrical engineer could get along without complex numbers, and neither could anyone working in aerodynamics or fluid dynamics.

  Keith Devlin

  Teaching, Math, Aerodynamics

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• The only reason that we like complex numbers is that we don't like real numbers.

  Bernd Sturmfels

  Real, Numbers, Reason

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• The whole apparatus of the calculus takes on an entirely different form when developed for the complex numbers.

  Keith Devlin

  Education, Numbers, Statistics

  Keith Devlin (1998). “Mathematics: The New Golden Age”, p.228, Penguin UK

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