Insights into Mathematics | How to construct the (true) complex numbers I | Famous Math Problems 21a | N J Wildberger @njwildberger | Uploaded 3 years ago | Updated 9 hours ago
The usual story of complex numbers needs to be strengthened and enlarged for the 21st century! Supposing that the complex numbers are a quadratic field extension of the "real numbers" is clearly inadequate, as the arithmetic of "real numbers" is mostly absent, and essentially vacuous. Notions of "modulus" and "argument" of complex numbers can politely be described as only approximate, requiring infinite processes of "square roots" or "transcendental functions" which are obviously unobtainable, in general, with our computers.

So how do we really proceed? That is what our aim in this Famous Math Problem is -- to show how to construct the true complex numbers. We start by discussing the notion of field, and illustrating the idea especially for finite fields. This is important because it turns out we can construct complex numbers over any field! And the key is to adapt the language of linear algebra and matrices, in particular 2 x 2 matrices over a general field. When we do this, it turns out that there are three beautiful candidates for complex numbers that emerge, one (called blue) associated to Euclidean geometry, and the other two (called red and green) associated to relativistic geometries.

Besides the general novel orientation, this lecture also introduces some perhaps surprising innovations for expressing negative numbers.

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Here are the Insights into Mathematics Playlists:

youtube.com/playlist?list=PL55C7C83781CF4316
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3C58498718451C47
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5A714C94D40392AB
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85BhzJ-oWNug1YtUjfWp1qAp
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85Bfc-S4WHvTIM7E-ir3nAOf
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85D94vHAB8joyFTH4dmVJ_Fw
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8403C2F0C89B1333
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85CcGpZpO542YLPeDIf1jqXK
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85Aqe2b4FBWUGJdYROT6-o4e
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85DB7CzoFWvA920NES3g8tJH
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85A-qCypcmZqRvaS1pGXpTua
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85DH__ZzGQWQrVRxlbKh-Nsa
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85CdeBmQZ2QiCEnPQn5KQ6ov
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85AMigTyprOuf__daeklnLse
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85CnIGIWb7tH1F_S2PyOC8rb
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85CN9oJ4gYkuSQQhAtpIucuI
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85DWUiFYYGqJVtfnkUFWkKtP
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6763F57A61FE6FE8
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBF39AFBBC3FB30AF
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85DSrlV6NX8RMBksZhdTHtwW
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIljB45xT85Bmcc9ksBOAKgIZAl0BwPg7

Here are the Wild Egg Maths Playlists (some available only to Members!)

youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz4rKFN541wFKvKPSg5Ea6XB
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz4VlOppC5CN0D0GjrjvBGKy
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz5VLVr-0LPPgm4T1mtU_DG-
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz6zpIZ4Y_RK9zyJ9OufqNJv
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz7hk_Kzj4zDF_kUXBCtiGn6
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz5j1BJdXBw1MFst_nQAqzZ_
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz5HWgaVkhIwpGVKi6fciRxW
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz5HBT_Yo1G4DfeqUfI9zkKM
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz7LKbuJAHaXAhRj2ylD0OoX
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz6VcJQ5xcuqY6g4DWjvpmjM
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz6MwUTOHRgC0oIxVtaHGQBd
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz4KD007Ge10dfrDVc4YwlYS
youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzdiPTrEWyz4IknbwXMEVwxOWS3z1Ch3C
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