In the previous article “Do symmetries come with dimensionless numbers rather than conserved quantities?”, I introduced a ...

Mathematicians were disturbed, centuries ago, to find that calculating the properties of certain curves demanded the seemingly impossible: numbers that, when multiplied by themselves, turn negative.

Yes, those of us who studied mathematics and physics after high school are familiar with the values $${i = \sqrt{-1}}$$ and ...

Imaginary numbers might seem like unicorns and goblins — interesting but irrelevant to reality. But for describing matter at its roots, imaginary numbers turn out to be essential. They seem to be ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: A team of German physicists has built a fully working version of quantum mechanics that uses only real numbers. Complex numbers, built from a ...