Complex Number Plane

Key Questions

  • The complex plane is a Cartesian-like plane where each complex number is a point, the x coordinate being the real part of the complex number and the y coordinate the imaginary part. In other words, z=a+bi in the complex plane is the point (a,b) in the Cartesian plane.

  • In simple terms the modulus of a complex number is its size.

    If you picture a complex number as a point on the complex plane, it is the distance of that point from the origin.

    If a complex number is expressed in polar coordinates (i.e. as r(cos theta + i sin theta)), then it's just the radius (r).

    If a complex number is expressed in rectangular coordinates - i.e. in the form a+ib - then it's the length of the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle whose other sides are a and b.

    From Pythagoras theorem we get: |a+ib|=sqrt(a^2+b^2).

  • Answer:

    1 = (1, 0) and i = (0, 1)

    Explanation:

    The complex number plane is usually considered as a two dimensional vector space over the reals. The two coordinates represent the real and imaginary parts of the complex numbers.

    As such, the standard orthonormal basis consists of the number 1 and i, 1 being the real unit and i the imaginary unit.

    We can consider these as vectors (1, 0) and (0, 1) in RR^2.

    In fact, if you start from a knowledge of the real numbers RR and want to describe the complex numbers CC, then you can define them in terms of pairs of real numbers with arithmetic operations:

    (a, b) + (c, d) = (a+c, b+d)" " (this is just addition of vectors)

    (a, b) * (c, d) = (ac-bd, ad+bc)

    The mapping a -> (a, 0) embeds the real numbers in the complex numbers, allowing us to consider real numbers as just complex numbers with a zero imaginary part.

    Note that:

    (a, 0) * (c, d) = (ac, ad)

    which is effectively scalar multiplication.

Questions