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From:	Patti (static-106-198-57-69.reinbeck.cfu.net)
Subject:	Re: Can anyone help me understand imaginary numbers?
Date:	November 16, 2007 at 3:07 am PST

In Reply to: Can anyone help me understand imaginary numbers? posted by Suzy in IL on November 15, 2007 at 11:40 am:

This may help. An imaginary number is one that does not fit on the number line. -i stands for - square root of one. Any negative square root just doesn't work. Nothing squared will give you a negative. But some great mathematician said he wanted a negative square root, so he created -i. (Somewhere in one of our books we were told who this cornball was-but I don't remember his name.)
Back to -i. Since it can't fit on the number line, you have to imagine it. Our finite minds just want to place it somewhere-and the only place is in our imagination. Hopefully this makes sense - if not - just imagine it does.lol :o)

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