Complex

numbers and Its

application

HISTORY OF COMPLEX NUMBERS:

Complex numbers were first conceived and defined by the Italian
mathematician Gerolamo Cardano, who called them "fictitious", during
his attempts to find solutions to cubic equations. This ultimately led to
the fundamental theorem of algebra, which shows that with complex
numbers, a solution exists to every polynomial equation of degree one
or higher. Complex numbers thus form an algebraically closed field,
where any polynomial equation has a root.
The rules for addition, subtraction and multiplication of complex
numbers were developed by the Italian mathematician Rafael Bombelli.
A more abstract formalism for the complex numbers was further
developed by the Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton.

A complex number is a number

that can be expressed in the
form a + bi, where a and b are
real numbers and i is the
imaginary unit, that satisfies
the equation x2 = 1, that is,
i2 = 1. In this expression, a is
the real part and b is the
imaginary part of the complex
number.

Complex numbers are

beautiful, because they
encode geometric
information through
algebra.

Quaternion
In mathematics, the
quaternions are a number
system that extends the
complex numbers
Quaternions provide a very
convenient way of representing
rotations of three-dimensional space.
Even more importantly, when
rotations are represented with
quaternions (as opposed to Euler
angles), it becomes much easier to
smoothly interpolate one rotation to
another, which is something
computers need to do repeatedly

Video Games and Quaternion

Many game programmers have already discovered the wonderful world of
quaternions and have started to use them extensively. Several third-person
games, including both TOMB RAIDER titles, use quaternion rotations to
animate all of their camera movements. Every third-person game has a
virtual camera placed at some distance behind or to the side of the player's
character. Because this camera goes through different motions (that is,
through arcs of a different lengths) than the character, camera motion can
appear unnatural and too "jerky" for the player to follow the action.struct
This Quat
is
{
one area where quaternions come to rescue.

};

float
float
float
float

x;
y;
z;
w;

"The shortest
route between
two truths in the
real domain
passes through
the complex
domain."

Fractal

A fractal is a natural phenomenon or a

mathematical set that exhibits a
repeating graphical pattern that
With computers, we can generate
displays at every scale.

beautiful art from complex numbers.

These designs are called

fractals.

Fractals are produced using an throughthis