Complex literals (was Re: I am never going to complain about Python again)

[Grant Edwards]

On 2013-10-10, Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 12:09 AM, Roy Smith <roy at panix.com> wrote:
>> BTW, one of the earliest things that turned me on to Python was when I
>> discovered that it uses j as the imaginary unit, not i.  All
>> right-thinking people will agree with me on this.
>
> I've never been well-up on complex numbers; can you elaborate on this,
> please? All I know is that I was taught that the square root of -1 is
> called i,

Nope.  "i" is electical current (though it's more customary to use
upper case).  "j" is the square root of -1.

> and that hypercomplex numbers include i, j, k, and maybe even other
> terms, and I never understood where j comes from. Why is Python
> better for using j?

Because that's the way we do it in electrical engineering. 

;)

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Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Are we THERE yet?
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