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Complex Numbers
Complex Numbers
A complex number is expressed in the standard form a + bi, where a and b are real numbers and i is defined by i^2 = -1 (that is, i is the square root of -1). For example, 3 + 2i is a complex number.
The bi term is often referred to as an imaginary number (though this may be misleading, as it is no more "imaginary" than the symbolic abstractions we know as the "real" numbers). Thus, every complex number has a real part, a, and an imaginary part, bi.
Complex numbers are often represented on a graph known as the "complex plane," where the horizontal axis represents the infinity of real numbers, and the vertical axis represents the infinity of imaginary numbers. Thus, each complex number has a unique representation on the complex plane: some closer to real; others, more imaginary. If a = b, the number is equal parts real and imaginary.
Very simple transformations applied to numbers in the complex plane can lead to fractal structures of enormous intricacy and astonishing beauty.
October 23, 2024 at 8:02am October 23, 2024 at 8:02am
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Comedy meets science in another Cracked article.
Right, because not knowing everything is the same as knowing nothing.
Science isn’t a discipline known for moving fast, breaking things or shooting first and asking questions later.
Well... kind of. For various definitions of "fast."
4. The Riemann Hypothesis
It’s ridiculously complicated, but let’s just say that according to the hypothesis, proposed by Bernard Riemann, there’s a pattern to the distribution of prime numbers along the number line.
Oh, come on, that's not science; that's math, a separate discipline that will never know everything.
3. Goldbach’s Conjecture
If 160 years seems like a long time, try 282. That’s how long ago Russian mathematician Christian Goldbach theorized that “every even positive integer greater than 3 is the sum of two (not necessarily distinct) primes.”
I invented the principle "never let facts get in the way of a joke," but again... math, not science.
2. The Clarendon Dry Piles
It sounds like a sex act that only exists on Urban Dictionary, but it may be even weirder. It’s two brass bells connected by a pair of batteries called dry piles powered by electrostatic forces. The amount of charge carried between the bells is so small that it appears to be a perpetual motion machine, but the truth is, the batteries are just draining extremely slowly.
So science has, in fact, answered a question: extremely slow drain. At least this one is actually science, not math.
It’s anyone’s guess when the batteries might die, but we’ll probably never know because the hardware will probably break first.
Seems to me that question will eventually be answered, so this section still doesn't meet the promise of the headline.
1. The 500-Year Microbiology Experiment
Also science.
It’s a stunning act of futility and optimism to bet on society surviving another 500 years, but that’s what scientists at the University of Edinburgh did in 2014 when they endeavored to find out if certain strains of dried bacteria can survive five centuries.
This headline sucked. That's another question that will eventually be answered.
That is, if, as the article notes, science is still around in 490 years. |
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