Yeah, I’m an electrical engineer; “i” is our symbol for current, so we use j instead. As for writing it to the right or left, it’s a matter of taste as far as I know. I like it to the left because you’re immediately clued in that it’s an imaginary quantity.
A plane is flying from Warsaw to Paris. The pilot announces that they are passing over Rotterdam, and the world’s largest container ship is visible out of the windows on the right side. Shortly afterward, the plane went into a tailspin and crashed.
Hell’s bells, that’s a good idea! Let’s classify every belief as a complex number (magnitude 1) with a real and imaginary part!
Astrology: (0 + j1) - {imaginary but vaguely intuitive}
Aliens have visited earth: (2^-1/2 + j2^-1/2) - {intuitively possible, imaginary but with finite real component}
Michelson’s prediction of aether wind effect: (-1 + j0) - {simply, honourably wrong}
Elan vital: (0 - j1) - {”not even wrong”}
Do you work in some kind of engineering field or something where people regularly write i as “j” and coefficients to the right? Just curious.
Yeah, I’m an electrical engineer; “i” is our symbol for current, so we use j instead. As for writing it to the right or left, it’s a matter of taste as far as I know. I like it to the left because you’re immediately clued in that it’s an imaginary quantity.
I don’t see the point of restriction to magnitude one. And if you do want that, it’s much easier to just specify the phase angle.
True, but it obscures the imaginary vs. real distinction.
Also, this is a joke. I think.
I demand my jokes to be totally rigorous!
Yeah, it’s a joke, but it could also be a cute (and hence possibly mnemonic) classification scheme.
Fair enough. :) I do find when I hear a science related joke that I take about a minute to determine whether it’s “correct,” then laugh.
Best one I’ve ever heard (only works if you’ve taken a complex algebra course):
All jokes about quantum mechanics are automatically unfunny.
Actually, there are Poles in Western Europe, but they’re removable. ;)
(potentially offensive) So you can mathematically prove that Hitler destabilized Europe?
*searches Internet for removable poles*
Ha!
Edit: By the way—and I fully grant this may be obvious—“removable poles” is not a very good search term.
A plane is flying from Warsaw to Paris. The pilot announces that they are passing over Rotterdam, and the world’s largest container ship is visible out of the windows on the right side. Shortly afterward, the plane went into a tailspin and crashed.
A later analysis revealed that the crash occurred because all the Poles had moved into the right half-plane.