THE VIDEO SHELF · history of imaginary numbers
How Imaginary Numbers Were Invented
Veritasium tells the history of how imaginary numbers arose from the quest for a general solution to the cubic equation, including the duels and secrecy among Renaissance mathematicians. It argues math had to give up the requirement that it mirror reality.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN recommends it as a well-visualized, story-driven history of complex numbers, suitable for beginners; some quibble with its framing of algebra and geometry.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Veritasium
- Topic
- history of imaginary numbers
- Format
- explainer
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 7
- HN mentions in dataset
- 11
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2021–2023
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
For those interested I also highly recommend Veritasium's video[1] as an excellent explainer as well, especially regarding the roots of imaginary/complex numbers in geometry. [1] [VIDEO]
Psyladine on Hacker News · 2022-02
In How the modern world arose from imaginary numbers> Something that occurs to me is that most of us have a poor grasp of why we even teach school math One of my favorite math courses was a college class that focused on concepts - technically not an education class but intended for …
Jap2-0 on Hacker News · 2021-11
In Will it rot my students' brains if they use Mathematica? (2002)Imaginary numbers simply represent a different and more powerful system like how integers gain power when you introduce 0 and negative numbers. Rational numbers (fractions) can’t represent irrational numbers like pi or e etc. It’s often useful because you can use complex numbers as an …
Retric on Hacker News · 2022-01
In Euler’s 243-Year-Old ‘Impossible’ Puzzle Gets a Quantum Solution
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.