A fair question: how did “i” get the name of “imaginary number”?

It seems harsh. In some sense, all numbers are imaginary. After all, is there really such a thing as negative numbers? You can’t have -2 friends, no matter how alienating your Facebook posts are.

Or what about the irrationals? If you take a 1-meter stick and mark it up into equal segments, then no matter how tiny and minute the divisions, you’ll never get an irrational length. Even if you go down to the atomic level. That’s kind of weird. Continue reading →