this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
718 points (93.3% liked)

memes

10697 readers
2695 users here now

Community rules

1. Be civilNo trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour

2. No politicsThis is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]

3. No recent repostsCheck for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month

4. No botsNo bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins

5. No Spam/AdsNo advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.

Sister communities

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Electrical engineers use them for calculating AC-circuits. In a DC circuit, you only have to worry about how much volt and amperes are in each part of the circuit. In an AC circuit, you also have to worry about the phase, cause the voltage goes up and down. The phase means where in that up and down you are.

The complex number is interpreted as a point on a 2-dimensional plane; the complex plane. You have the "normal" number as 1 axis, and orthogonal to that the imaginary axis. The angle of the vector to that point gives the phase.

They can be generally used for such "wavy" (ie periodical) processes. But I think this particular field of electrical engineering is the main application.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I'm glad to hear you say that, cause after sending I worried that I didn't make much sense.