Original version

BBC World Service South Asia

Discovery

Documentaries

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

Discovery: The impossible number

Magazines & Reviews

The Impossible Number

01/05/2023 GMT

The impossible number

BBC World Service - Discovery, The impossible number

The Curious Cases team get to grips with the very real uses of imaginary numbers

The Curious Cases team get to grips with the very real uses of imaginary numbers.

There is a bizarre number in maths referred to simply as ‘i’. It appears to break the rules of arithmetic - but turns out to be utterly essential for applications across engineering and physics. We are talking about the square root of -1, which makes no sense.

Professor Fry waxes lyrical about the beauty and power of this so-called ‘imaginary’ number to a sceptical Dr Rutherford. 

Dr Michael Brooks, author of The Maths That Made Us, tells the surprising story of the duelling Italian mathematicians who gave birth to this strange idea, and shares how Silicon Valley turned it into cold hard cash. Professor Jeff O’Connell, Ohlone College California, demonstrates that it is all about oscillations, and Dr Eleanor Knox, philosopher of physics at KCL and a senior visiting fellow at the University of Pittsburgh reveals that imaginary numbers are indispensable for the most fundamental physics of all - quantum mechanics.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Discovery

The impossible number

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service South Asia

About BBC World Service