its a shared "delusion"
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----- Original Message -----
From: Kuba Ober
To: tekscopes@...
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2006 12:02 PM
Subject: Re: SV: [TekScopes] Invitation for another exchange of questionably useful information.
On Friday 29 December 2006 05:38, you wrote:
> That post reminds me of my own high school drama: The j-omega method.
>
> The root of minus 1? still bugs me. Haven?t yet figured it out after 33
> years...
>
> For me it was too mind blowing. Had to stop thinking before I got a
> psychosis?
>
>
>
> And? our teacher back then, was a well known idiot, that (by the rumour)
> got a anonymously job advertise in his mail for this teacher job from a
> former headmaster. He was totally incompetent as a mathematician teacher,
> and had one item in his track record only: as a mechanical instrument tech
> at ASEA. He was totally unable to give me the idea (part from my own brains
> lack of fantasy) of the ?root of minus one?.
Well, it's an abstract concept, I guess it's better treated like one. Your
only "idea" should be of the properties of this number, and some applications
that suit your interests.
I don't think I have any other "ideas" here. You can go pretty far by just
knowing that the number has "otherwise" normal properties, i.e. you treat it
like any other number that only doesn't "mix" (in addition) with real
numbers. And when you square it, it goes away. I did my grad level vibrations
course without using any other "higher" properties (whatever those might be)
of sqrt(-1). I guess it shows what a powerful concept it is: only minimal
properties are necessary to extract a lot of mathematical expression power.
Cheers, Kuba
