If standard quantum theory holds up, imaginary numbers are critical. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Imaginary numbers are ...

Imaginary numbers can seem confusing at first, but they play a powerful role in mathematics and real-world applications. This guide explains what imaginary numbers are, why they exist, and how they ...

Several years ago one of us, Toni, asked another of us, Marco, to come to his office at the Institute of Photonic Sciences, a large research center in Castelldefels near Barcelona. “There is a problem ...

A century ago, the strange behavior of atoms and elementary particles led physicists to formulate a new theory of nature. That theory, quantum mechanics, found immediate success, proving its worth ...

For the first time, researchers have seen how light behaves during a mysterious phenomenon called 'imaginary time'. When you shine light through almost any transparent material, the gridlock of ...

Imaginary numbers are necessary to accurately describe reality, two new studies have suggested. Imaginary numbers are what you get when you take the square root of a negative number, and they have ...