To a nonmathematician, having the letter “i” represent a number that does not quite exist and is “imaginary” can be hard to wrap your head around. If you open your mind to this way of thinking, ...

A century ago, the strange behavior of atoms and elementary particles led physicists to formulate a new theory of nature. That theory, quantum mechanics, found immediate success, proving its worth ...

Images of plants painted on pottery made up to 8,000 years ago may be the earliest example of humans’ mathematical thought, a ...

In 1886 the mathematician Leopold Kronecker famously said, “God Himself made the whole numbers — everything else is the work of men.” Indeed, mathematicians have introduced new sets of numbers besides ...

The techniques he developed in the field of complex numbers have found use in tackling a wide range of fundamental equations in physics. By Kenneth Chang Joseph J. Kohn, who played a key role in ...

Complex-valued neural networks represent an evolving frontier where the intrinsic properties of complex numbers—magnitude and phase—are harnessed to develop richer and more robust representations of ...