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cpercivayesterday at 6:40 PM2 repliesview on HN

The complex numbers are just elements of R[i]/(i^2+1). I don't even understand how people are able to get this wrong.


Replies

FillMathsyesterday at 7:20 PM

Of course everyone agrees that this is a nice way to construct the complex field. The question is what is the structure you are placing on this construction. Is it just a field? Do you intend to fix R as a distinguished subfield? After all, there are many different copies of R in C, if one has only the field structure. Is i named as a constant, as it seems to be in the construction when you form the polynomials in the symbol i. Do you intend to view this as a topological space? Those further questions is what the discussion is about.

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