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.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. An imaginary number is a number that, when squared, has a negative result. Essentially, an ...

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 ...

Think back to elementary school during which you learned about a seemingly useless mathematical relic called prime numbers. Your teacher told you in class one day that they are special numbers, ...

The Curious Cases team get to grips with the very real uses of imaginary numbers. Show more There is a bizarre number in maths referred to simply as ‘i’. It appears to break the rules of arithmetic - ...

In the mystic world of quantum physics, a team of Chinese scientists is proving that one of the field’s favourite imaginary tools might not be fanciful after all. Through a series of intricate ...