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Title: History of complex numbers Post by Mickey1 on Feb 10th, 2011, 7:56am Does anyone know how people understood for instance exp(ix) = cos(x)+i sin(x) from the beginning (=in the 18 hundreds). Was it by looking at the power series of 1+ix+(ix)^2/2 ... , and the corresponding series for cos(x) + i sin(x)? or did that come later? |
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Title: Re: History of complex numbers Post by towr on Feb 10th, 2011, 9:08am I don't really know much about it, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_numbers#History treats a bit of the history of complex numbers. From what it says it seems like Euler started from the complex power series, and then found Euler's formula. |
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Title: Re: History of complex numbers Post by Mickey1 on Feb 14th, 2011, 12:15am Thank you for that. I note the formular came up 100 years earlier than I thougth. |
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Title: Re: History of complex numbers Post by fizyka on Dec 30th, 2011, 3:27pm It's funny they just came up something and then much later they use it in somefields like electronics etc. |
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