Re:Physical 3x3x3x3 hypercube and other physical 4d twisty p...
by verteu on Wednesday April 05, 2023 @10:53AM
(#35455258)
Don't be intimidated! The person who first invented complex numbers called them "useless" and "mental torture."[1] Subsequent mathematicians have simply gotten used to them.
You'd invent them, too, if you spent a few weeks building a computer program to output the values of `t` that make `t^3+pt+q=0` (when `4p^3 + 27q^2 < 0`, there are 3 real solutions, but they can't be expressed in general without involving complex numbers).[2]
You'd invent them, too, if you spent a few weeks building a computer program to output the values of `t` that make `t^3+pt+q=0` (when `4p^3 + 27q^2 < 0`, there are 3 real solutions, but they can't be expressed in general without involving complex numbers).[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number#History [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_equation#Cardano's_formu...