h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Icy, I've really enjoyed this and it has made me think that I may have passed my A level maths if you had been my teacher. Mathematicians who can only explain maths using maths don't really help me. Using saws, blancmanges and hills and torches makes a lot more sense to me.

I have a question which may lead to a longer thread or even an article. It's probably to do with my lack of understanding of i (the imaginary number which is the square root of -1).

I think philosophically about this. Mathematicians who are, to me, the most logical people in the world have an imaginary friend. A number which doesn't exist, but does if they say it does. And not only that, but it allows lots of other questions to be answered that couldn't be answered without the imaginary friend existing.

So my philosophical question is this:

Is God i?

As Ali G never said, is it because i is God?

i (or as electrical engineers prefer to spell it, j) is just a symbol for this little piece of unknown. It happens to obey some of the rules of algebra, so we can often manipulate it like we would with x or y. There are some exceptions, though.

The best way to visualise it in the real world is to think of a reversible action - anything, really. Reflecting yourself in a mirror, say. When you reflect yourself, you appear backwards. When you reflect the reflection, you come out forwards again. Simple

Now, try to think what half a reflection looks like? You would need to do it twice to make a reflection. This half-reflection is i.

I wrote an entry on complex numbers once - let me see...

A25746249

Good luck with it!