Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Imaginary numbers push the boundaries of calculus and other branches of math. Hill Street Studios/DigitalVision via Getty Images ...

Imagine winding the hour hand of a clock back from 3 o’clock to noon. Mathematicians have long known how to describe this rotation as a simple multiplication: A number representing the initial ...

Visit NAP.edu/10766 to get more information about this book, to buy it in print, or to download it as a free PDF. §I.1 THIS BOOK IS A HISTORY OF ALGEBRA, written for the curious nonmathematician. It ...

The world of math is complex … in more ways than one. Sure, it’s full of complex ideas that are all tied up and packaged within beautiful and often times complex wrapping paper that is adorned with ...

To a nonmathematician, having the letter “i” represent a number that does not quite exist and is “imaginary” can be hard to ...