Complex Numbers

In algebraic computations we often wind up with radical expressions such as , , , and so forth. In the set of real numbers, there is no way of extracting these radicands.

In order to make such expressions meaningful, we define a new set of numbers called complex numbers. To establish the set of complex numbers, we first define a unique entity, or an imaginary unit which is equivalent to . We denote the imaginary unit by i. Thus, i = .