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Denziloe t1_j6bs4bo wrote

Reply to comment by TheDMisalwaysright in ELI5: Why do imaginary numbers even need to exist? by Tharsis101

Not really true. Imaginary numbers were put on a sound footing by Gauss in the 1800s. Mathematicians were very comfortable with them by the time of quantum physics. Generally mathematicians are not concerned about whether there are physical applications.

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Magnetic_Syncopation t1_j6dbxru wrote

>Generally mathematicians are not concerned about whether there are physical applications.

They're not anti-applications, it's more that they spend time in abstract-land for a while investigating something before they look for applications of what they just created. It's their creative process.

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TheDMisalwaysright t1_j6hex1j wrote

Yeah, definitely, what I meant was that at first it wasn't seriously considered, root of a negative was just end of the road, and then later it was seen as a useful curiosity, something to help in intermediate steps but living purely in the theoretical/mathematical space, but only with Schrödinger they realised that it was part of nature and could be an answer in itself, not just an intermediary.

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