anonymous one year ago why is the square root of -1 equal to i

1. Nnesha

good question.

2. anonymous
3. Vocaloid

I believe that's just how it's defined, isn't it?

4. anonymous

this should help

5. mathstudent55

It's because mathematicians decided to define it that way.

6. Nnesha

bec my teachers said so

7. Vocaloid

what I meant to say was, mathematicians just decided to take the quantity sqrt(-1) and assign it the symbol i

8. anonymous

ok

9. anonymous

does this help @pocketpenguin1 ?

10. anonymous

i understand that it is because the square root of -1 is not defined under real space due to the rules of square roots but i don't know how to write it in an algebraic form

11. anonymous

not really @Houdini_Dragon

12. anonymous

hmm ok one sec

13. Vocaloid

can you give an example?

14. anonymous
15. anonymous

16. Nnesha

it's cycle |dw:1444608366475:dw|

17. anonymous

ooohhh i like it @Nnesha

18. Nnesha

thanks.-,-

19. anonymous

i understand more clearly now, you use a square root to find which number is being multiplied by itself in order to get the number under the square root symbol, but you can not multiply any number by itself to get -1, so $\sqrt{-1}$ is in imaginary space

20. anonymous

thank you

21. anonymous

np medal?

22. anonymous

nvm i am glad u got it and that is what matters

23. Nnesha

for algebraic expression i guess i represent a variable let's say we have 3i +4i = 7i it also depends on the statement hm

24. anonymous

u can close this question now sense u understand........

25. anonymous

how