Imaginary numbers why do you need a positive and a negative? - Answers

Because an imaginary number is impossible otherwise. For instance, the square root of negative nine (-9) is an imaginery number because any two numbers multiplied by each other yield a positive number. So the SQR of -9 must have a rational part (SQR(9)) and an imaginary part, which assigns the negative.A:Computers work on a binary system, and western maths is based on + and _. But if there was a third category, called neutral, then the square root of minus one would be neutral 1. And the whole strange notion of imaginary numbers would be unnecessary. There are questions which can't be answered by 'yes' or 'no', when neither is applicable. In China, the answer to a question such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?" would be wumu, meaning both yes and no or neither. On a 2-dimensional graph, + is to the right, - to the left of the upright line. And neutral sticks up off the paper from zero to your eye. In a third dimension. The concept of imaginary numbers doesn't exist in China, because they think differently. We can put weights on both pans of a balance (back weighing). Or, if you have a series of rooms, each with normally always two chairs, and then take one away in one room, we would say that room now has one chair. But in China, they would say it has minus one, since it is one less than normal. It is merely a different way of thinking.Correction:The concept of imaginary numbers does in fact exist in China, and pretty much everywhere else that has bothered to investigate along these lines of inquiry. China, a major contributor to international math, especially over at least the last 100 years, is completely aware of the concept and application of imaginary numbers. Additionally, because something has two component parts does not make it an example of westernized dichotomism as a philosophy; it simply means something has two (or one, or three) parts -- nothing more.As to computers having two states: zero and one, this is an artifact of the means by which technology evolved, specifically electrical states of off and on, which are easy to detect, as opposed to analog electrical states, which require a lot more control and instrumentation (consider the relative complexity of a voltage meter versus a wall switch as an example). I should add that China, who is now accountably a world leader in some aspects of computer systems design, is certainly adept and comfortable with binary math and boolean algebra.