Difference between revisions of "Complex number"
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*[[2004 AIME I Problems/Problem 13|2004 AIME I Problem 13]] | *[[2004 AIME I Problems/Problem 13|2004 AIME I Problem 13]] | ||
*[[2005 AIME II Problems/Problem 9|2005 AIME II Problem 9]] | *[[2005 AIME II Problems/Problem 9|2005 AIME II Problem 9]] | ||
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===Olympiad=== | ===Olympiad=== | ||
Revision as of 21:22, 30 November 2007
The complex numbers arise when we try to solve equations such as 
.
Contents
Derivation
We know (from the trivial inequality) that the square of a real number cannot be negative, so this equation has no solutions in the real numbers. However, it is possible to define a number, 
, such that 
. If we add this new number to the reals, we will have solutions to . It turns out that in the system that results from this addition, we are not only able to find the solutions of but we can now find all solutions to every polynomial. (See the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra for more details.)
Formal Definition
We are now ready for a more formal definition. A complex number is a number of the form 
where 
and is the imaginary unit. The set of complex numbers is denoted by 
. The set of complex numbers contains the set 
of the real numbers, since 
, but it is much larger.
Parts
Every complex number 
has a real part denoted 
or 
and an imaginary part denoted 
or 
. Note that the imaginary part of a complex number is real: for example, 
. So, if 
, we can write 
. ( and 
are traditionally used in place of 
and 
as variables when dealing with complex numbers, while and (and frequently also 
and 
) are used to represent real values such as the real and imaginary parts of complex numbers. This mathematical convention is often broken when it is inconvenient, so be sure that you know what set variables are taken from when dealing with the complex numbers.)
As you can see, complex numbers enable us to remove the restriction of 
from the domain of the function 
(although some additional considerations are necessary).
Operations
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Multiplication
- Division
- Absolute value/Modulus/Magnitude (denoted by
). This is the distance from the origin to the complex number in the complex plane. - Conjugation
- The argument function
). This is the distance from the origin to the complex number in the 
Simple Example
If 
and 
,
,
,
,
,
Topics
Problems
Introductory
Intermediate
- 1984 AIME Problem 8
- 1985 AIME Problem 3
- 1988 AIME Problem 11
- 1989 AIME Problem 14
- 1990 AIME Problem 10
- 1992 AIME Problem 10
- 1994 AIME Problem 8
- 1994 AIME Problem 13
- 1995 AIME Problem 5
- 1996 AIME Problem 11
- 1997 AIME Problem 11
- 1997 AIME Problem 14
- 1998 AIME Problem 13
- 1999 AIME Problem 9
- 2000 AIME II Problem 9
- 2002 AIME I Problem 12
- 2004 AIME I Problem 13
- 2005 AIME II Problem 9
