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| Imaginary Numbers |
Imaginary Numbers
An Imaginary Number "i" is defined simply as the square root of -1. In other words i2 = -1. One of the reasons you would use Imaginary Numbers (or Complex Numbers as some others call them) is so that you can manipulate equations or expressions that contain the square root of -1.
Imaginary numbers are used to represent two-dimensional numbers. Much like radio waves, there is an electric part and a magnetic part that orthogonal to each other. Imaginary numbers are used to represent such a number - think of it as a mathematical construct. The number, 1+i represents a 45 degree angle (the Tan-1(1) = 45 degrees. The imaginary part you can think of as the y-axis and the real part as the x-axis. a+bi is a general representation of the number and the inverse tangent (b/a) represents the phase angle while the sqrt (a^2 + b^2) represents the magnitude of the number.