Why Minus Times Minus is Plus: the Very Basic Mathematics of Real and Complex Numbers

MATHEMATICS / ALGEBRA This book is written for a very broad audience. There are no particular prerequisites for reading this book. We hope students of High Schools, Colleges, and Universities, as well as hobby mathematicians, will like and benefit from this book. The book is rigorous and self-contained. All results are proved (or the proofs are optional exercises) and stated as theorems. Important points are covered by examples and optional exercises. Additionally there are also two sections called "More optional exercises (with answers)." Modern technology uses complex numbers for just about everything. Actually, there is no way one can formulate quantum mechanics without resorting to complex numbers. Leonard Euler (1707-1786) considered it natural to introduce students to complex numbers much earlier than we do today. Even in his elementary algebra textbook he uses complex numbers throughout the book. Nils K. Oeijord is a science writer and a former assistant professor of mathematics at Tromsoe College, Norway. He is the author of The Very Basics of Tensors, and several other books in English and Norwegian. Nils K. Oeijord is the discoverer of the general genetic catastrophe (GGC).