Imaginary numbers are real

[socrat44]

Imaginary numbers are real
These odd values were long dismissed as bookkeeping.
Now physicists are proving that they describe the hidden shape of nature.
14 July 2022
/ Karmela Padavic-Callaghanis, Edited by Pam Weintraub /
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"Laboratory experiments involving quantum computers and quantised light now strongly
indicate that imaginary and complex numbers are an indispensable part of the quantum,
and therefore our own, world."
"Almost a hundred years after Schrödinger bemoaned imaginary numbers,
physicists are finding they may be useful in very practical ways.
Quantum physics has revealed that we’ve misunderstood imaginary numbers all along"
"Quantum theory has historically challenged many seemingly ‘common sense’
assumptions about nature. It has, for example, changed the way physicists think
about an experimenter’s ability to measure something with certainty,
or the claim that objects can be affected only by other objects in their immediate surroundings.
When quantum theory was first formulated, it scandalised many luminaries of science at the time,
including Einstein who contributed to its foundations himself. Working with quantum ideas
and poking quantum systems has always, by default, come with the possibility of uncovering
something unexpected at best, and bizarre at worst. Now quantum physics has revealed
that we’ve misunderstood imaginary numbers all along.
They may have, for a time, seemed to be just a mental device inhabiting
the minds of physicists and mathematicians, but since the real world that
we inhabit is indeed quantum, it’s no surprise that imaginary numbers
can be found, quite clearly, within it."
---------
https://aeon.co/essays/how-imaginary-nu ... CwO-Y1kHqU
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[Flannel Jesus]

I agree

(ish)

It's hard to say for sure. Imaginary numbers provide a concept of Rotation in our system of mathematics. When you multiply something by i, it rotates the number 90degress on the realNumber / imaginaryNumber plane (or in other words the Complex Numbers plane).

We know for sure that these quantum experiments require a sense of "numerical rotation". Many scientists think it's likely that the mechanism for this rotation is with imaginary numbers, and it may be! But I think there's still a vague possibility that the numerical rotation could be achieved by other means. It's very hard to say for sure.

[Impenitent]

imaginary numbers are not blind

-Imp

[bobmax]

The numbers are not real, that is, they are not there.
Not even natural numbers are there regardless of the mind that thinks them.

In my opinion it is a serious misunderstanding to believe in the existence of numbers by themselves.

There are things, not numbers.

Believing in the existence of the world of numbers consists in believing in hyperuranium.
An idea that can only become a nightmare.

[MagsJ]

_
Re: “Imaginary numbers are real”

Is the intangible, real? Concepts, lack substance, until they are made tangible.

[wtf]

Imaginary numbers are real

Didn't you post this back in December, 2021?

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=34109&p=551223#p551223

And before that, back in May, 2021?

viewtopic.php?f=26&t=32945

I thoroughly contextualized this "physicists doing bad math" article here. Or perhaps it's just "science writers doing bad physics," a huge growth industry these days.

viewtopic.php?p=509532#p509532

OP, just curious as to why you repost the same silly gee-whiz article every six months or so? The imaginary unit i is just a notational gadget representing a quarter turn counterclockwise in the plane, or a phase shift of a sine wave. Of course it comes up in physics. If you like you can represent i as a particular 2x2 matrix, or as a pair of real numbers. There's no mystery to it. See for example,

https://dsp.stackexchange.com/questions ... agine-this

[socrat44]

OP, just curious as to why you repost the same silly gee-whiz article every six months or so? T

It is just curious as to why different physicists publish "silly gee-whiz article every six months or so?"
1- By Patrick Honner. October 25, 2018
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-imag ... -20181025/
2 - By Emily Conover. DECEMBER 15, 2021 AT 11:00 AM
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/qua ... 10PeTJ0Vik
3 - By Marc-Olivier Renou, David Trillo, Mirjam Weilenmann, Thinh P. Le, Armin Tavakoli,
Nicolas Gisin, Antonio Acín & Miguel Navascués. Published: 15 December 2021
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04160-4
4 - By Faculty of Physics University of Warsaw on Apr 27, 2021
https://scitechdaily.com/physicists-pro ... KGkIFzeblE
5 - By Karmela Padavic-Callaghanis, Edited by Pam Weintraub.
14 July 2022
https://aeon.co/essays/how-imaginary-nu ... CwO-Y1kHqU