Discovering Group Theory, Day 15

April 1, 2017 /

On Day 15, we continued working with complex numbers, but now in exponential or polar form. After an introduction to complex numbers exponential form and its relation to the rectangular form, students worked on exercises covering:

  • Complex numbers in the polar form and their relation to the rectangular form
  • Complex conjugation and modulus
  • Complex numbers as points in a complex plane

About half of the class managed to get to the proof that the complex numbers form a group under multiplication, which was easier to do in the polar form.

We ended the class by watching a TED talk by Murray Gell-Mann,  “Beauty, truth, and …, physics?”.