Cargando…

An imaginary tale: the story of [the square root of] -1

Today complex numbers have such widespread practical use--from electrical engineering to aeronautics--that few people would expect the story behind their derivation to be filled with adventure and enigma. In An Imaginary Tale, Paul Nahin tells the 2000-year-old history of one of mathematics' mo...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Nahin, Paul J
Lenguaje:eng
Publicado: Princeton Univ. Press 2006
Materias:
Acceso en línea:http://cds.cern.ch/record/1140515
Descripción
Sumario:Today complex numbers have such widespread practical use--from electrical engineering to aeronautics--that few people would expect the story behind their derivation to be filled with adventure and enigma. In An Imaginary Tale, Paul Nahin tells the 2000-year-old history of one of mathematics' most elusive numbers, the square root of minus one, also known as i. He recreates the baffling mathematical problems that conjured it up, and the colorful characters who tried to solve them.In 1878, when two brothers stole a mathematical papyrus from the ancient Egyptian burial site in the Valley of Kings