Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!nntp.club.cc.cmu.edu!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!panix!not-for-mail From: Grant Edwards Newsgroups: comp.lang.python Subject: Re: Complex literals (was Re: I am never going to complain about Python again) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 14:12:36 +0000 (UTC) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC Lines: 25 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: dsl.comtrol.com X-Trace: reader1.panix.com 1381414356 15447 64.122.56.22 (10 Oct 2013 14:12:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2013 14:12:36 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: slrn/1.0.1 (Linux) Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:56575 On 2013-10-10, Chris Angelico wrote: > On Fri, Oct 11, 2013 at 12:09 AM, Roy Smith wrote: >> BTW, one of the earliest things that turned me on to Python was when I >> discovered that it uses j as the imaginary unit, not i. All >> right-thinking people will agree with me on this. > > I've never been well-up on complex numbers; can you elaborate on this, > please? All I know is that I was taught that the square root of -1 is > called i, Nope. "i" is electical current (though it's more customary to use upper case). "j" is the square root of -1. > and that hypercomplex numbers include i, j, k, and maybe even other > terms, and I never understood where j comes from. Why is Python > better for using j? Because that's the way we do it in electrical engineering. ;) -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! Are we THERE yet? at My MIND is a SUBMARINE!! gmail.com