IMAGINARY NUMBERS COULD BE NEEDED TO DESCRIBE REALITY
Words by Ben Turner
IN COOPERATION WITH SPACE.COM
Schrödinger wasn’t a fan of imaginary numbers
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Imaginary numbers are what you get when you take the square root of a negative number. When you add imaginary numbers and real numbers, the two form complex numbers, which enable physicists to write out quantum equations in simple terms. But whether quantum theory needs these mathematical chimeras or just uses them as convenient shortcuts has long been controversial.