Thank GTC for the book list I'll have a look. It is starting to filter through, I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday so things are starting to make a bit of sense. Conventional current...grrr!!

Thanks again
Pat

If you can get a grasp of the basics: The rest becomes a lot easier. At least its Physics and not Chemistry.

From what I have seen from some students, plus working in a chemical plant & one plant operator in particular. Chemistry is a thing of two parts.

Part one: Chem stands for chemicals.
Part two: Mystery; And that is what it remains to be for many.

Marc

Re: Wa2ise ....imaginery numbers I hated them

......DITTO

That makes three of us. If they are imaginary, how can they exist?

But if you think that sucks, take a look at Quantum Mechanics-------Yikes!!!

From what I remember of imaginary numbers fifty years ago, if you did a calculation to do with a real outcome, you ended up multiplying i, being the square root of -1, with its self get -1. So the imaginary disappeared. So it was a mathematical ruse. But Maxwell included it in his equations of electromagnetism, so we are stuck with it.

Excellent point STC. In Maxwell's time classical mechanics ruled (Sir Issac Newton's gift to humanity).

When quantum physics reared its ugly head (very ugly) classical mechanics went into meltdown. When that happened the physics
world went nuts.Suddenly everything we were trained to believe is challenged. Are imaginary numbers part of the old world or new?

In our case (us means us, everyone who is part of this forum involved in electronics/electrical engineering) we know Maxwell's work
is spot on. Logic would tell us that imaginary numbers must exist.

Any physicists out there care to comment?

No physicist, but since Maxwell included them, and his equations work, they are real enough, even though they seem like a mathematical construct. But as Wa2ise said, initially people did not really believe that they could exist, so called them imaginary when the first name for them was complex numbers.

It is possible maybe that there is another set of equations that work which would do without them. In that case imaginary numbers would go the way of the aether to account for the propagation electromagnetic waves through a vacuum (Einstein sorted that), and phlogiston which used to account for the production of heat by work (Newton sorted that).

In the meantime, we stick with what works.

A little puzzle for Brad; in composing Post #20, "i" in the compostition sometimes rendered as "I" in the actual post, and it was necessary to use the phrase "with itself to get -1" to prevent it. Perhaps this is another manifestation of imaginary numbers, but I rather think that there is some other law (gremlin?) of cyberspace accounting for this glitch.

There have been alternative mathematics since ancient times. We did not have a zero in mathematics in Europe when India did. Some of the Egyptian Mathematics was not accurate but a lot was, even down to time calculation & Astronomy. They seem to have invented & had land survey & measurement down to a fine art & it appears that there had to be a defined "Standard Cubit". Their method for an approximation for the area of a circle was interesting. Nothing there seems to have just happened. It was all measured up & planned.

The little I changing to a big I is no accident. It is to correct a common grammatical oversight committed by the lazy. The feature is a pain when trying to format italics as sometimes the foromcode for this overrides the forumcode but I do prefer postings here (and elsewhere) to be in Engilsh and not textspeak.

In electronic engineering's use of complex numbers in AC circuit theory, the problem is avoided by always using " j " in place of " I ".

Very important because " I " means AC current. Could get VERY confusing otherwise!