Imagine there's no i

Back when in University we had to take several classes on Math, Physics, Number theory and the like. It was the foundation to be an engineer. It didn't matter if you wanted to be a Software Engineer (like me) or a Chemical Engineer. The first three years we all had the same classes.

As a young adult, many of the concepts that were introduced during that time blew my mind. But there is one that is both insanely crazy yet one of the most useful things in Math.

i

Not the i that Apple is using all over the place, although it does have a funny tie-in if you think about it. Apple products are in fact truly imaginary, almost not real.

The concept was that there are numbers that are not Real. Numbers that belong in a different category, in the imaginary world. Part of the Complex  world.

It is a fascinating concept since all numbers are already made up by humans. It is true that Math is a universal language, but the definition of 1, 2, 3 was imagined by us. I guess when we ran out of imaginary numbers that we call Real numbers, we had to come up with more imaginary numbers that are actually called imaginary numbers!

Love it.