Questions tagged [complex-analysis]
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To what extent were Riemann surfaces a precursor to algebraic geometry?
I read that Riemann started studying the so-called Riemann's surfaces in the second half of the 19th century, introducing tools like meromorphic functions and meromorphic 1-forms. The culmination of ...
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The history and origin of the Argument Principle ( or Cauchy's argument principle)
I am looking for a book that discusses The history and origin of the Argument Principle ( or Cauchy's argument principle) Thanks!
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Origin of the term "affixe"/"affix" in the geometric treatment of complex numbers
In current French mathematical tradition, when introducing complex numbers, it is common to hear about "complex plane of Argand-Cauchy".
What is particular in French treatment, it is the ...
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Who introduced the stream function?
I have found many different claimed answers to this question:
Wikipedia article on the stream function claims that Lagrange introduced it in 1781.
Darrigol's The Worlds of Flow says that D'Alambert ...
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Poisson integral formula
The term Poisson integral formula may refer to any of the related formulas for harmonic (or holomorphic) functions on a disk (or in a ball, half space, etc) in terms of their boundary values. This is ...
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History of the definition of complex derivative
Almost all of modern complex analysis (Cauchy residue theorem, analytic continuation, etc) depend on the definition of a complex derivative.
That definition requires the derivative at a point $z_0$ is ...
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What is the significance of Gauss-Weierstrass's derivation of "Al functions"?
In a fragment entitled "inversion of the elliptic integral of the first genus" (Gauss's werke, volume 8, p. 96-97), Gauss inverts the general elliptic integral of the first kind: he writes $\...
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Reference request for Gauss's original discovery of the special property of the $j$ function
In Interchapter VII of his biography of Gauss, W.K. Buhler describes Gauss's discovery of one of the important properties that characterize the $j$ invariant (Klein's absolute invariant; Gauss called ...
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Original proof of the Schwarz lemma
The classical Schwarz lemma from one-variable complex analysis states that a holomorphic map $f : \Delta(r) \to \Delta(R)$ between two disks in the complex plane such that $f(0)=0$ satisfies $$|f(z)| \...
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How did Roger Cotes come up with logarithm form of Euler formula?
I have been trying to get my head around how Roger Cotes first discovered Euler Formula.
I knew how Euler did it, but I wanted a new perspective, especially from someone who discovered it earlier.
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Did anyone ever propose a hypercomplex numbers system with more than one anisotropic axis?
The real number axis is asymmetric against zero: for instance, multiplication of two negative or two positive numbers will produce a positive number, a square root of a negative number is not real, ...
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Why are quaternions more popular than tessarines despite being non-commutative?
Is this simply because of marketing, hype, etc?
The bicomplex numbers (especially tessarines) look just great being commutative and all.
Images source:https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?...
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History of complex trigonometric ratios
I have just started learning about trigonometric ratios of complex arguments but I couldn't find any justification or derivation for extending trigonometric ratios to complex field. Also the Euler's ...
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On the history of development of the concept of complex numbers [closed]
The history of how the concept of complex numbers developed is convoluted.
On physics.stackexchange questions about complex numbers keep recurring. It seems to me this indicates that when authors of ...
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Why are complex numbers called 'complex'?
I'm a high school teacher, and I was just wondering why complex numbers are called 'complex'. I have read that Gauss coined the term. But I couldn't find any reference where it was explained.
I also ...
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Who was the first person to notice logarithms of negatives numbers and for what reason?
Who was the first person to notice logarithms of negatives numbers and why? When did they first arise naturally? I thought I saw somewhere that it had to do with integration but I can't find it ...
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How much ground was prepared for Riemann so that he could conjecture Riemann hypothesis?
Although I do not doubt in Riemann˙s originality, I would like to know how much complex analysis was developed up to the day when Riemann conjectured what is today called Riemann hypothesis and how ...
user11203
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Who pioneered the study of the sedenions?
I found lots of background information about the discovery of both imaginary and complex numbers, and enough information about the first two types of hypercomplex numbers; quaternions and octonions (...
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How did Hardy and Littlewood formulate the k-tuple conjecture?
Let $\mathcal{H}_k = (h_1,h_2,\cdots,h_k)$ be an admissible k-tuple.
The k-tuple conjecture predicts that the number of primes $(b+h_1,b+h_2,\cdots,b+h_k)\in \mathbb{P}^k$ with $b+h_k \leq x$ is:
$$\...
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$[\operatorname{Cos}(x)+i\operatorname{Sin}(x)]\cdot[\operatorname{Cos}(y)+i\operatorname{Sin}(y)]=\operatorname{Cos}(x+y)+i\operatorname{Sin}(x+y)$
Had this non-analytic theorem ever been known before Euler discovered his analytic formula: $\operatorname{Cos}(x)+i\operatorname{Sin}(x)= e^{ix}$ ?
Please notice the distinction between, the theorem ...
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History of a contour integral method for summing series
A folklore result I have seen used in evaluations of infinite sums is the following clever use of the residue theorem:
$$\begin{align*}\sum_{1}^\infty f(k)&=\frac1{2\pi i}\oint f(z)\pi\cot\pi z\,\...
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What was the motivation for Cauchy's Integral Theorem?
How did Cauchy go about Cauchy's integral theorem? What was his motivation?
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Why is Riemann's dissertation (from 1851) considered a turning point in the history of the theory of conformal mappings?
The intention behind my question is to understand what are the kind of general problems of which the ideas of Riemann's dissertation (1851) lie at the heart of it's solution methods. In his ...
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Mathematics development can sometimes **exceed** the practical needs, right?
I read below paragraph from the book "A Friendly Introduction to Number Theory":
The use of "$i$" to denote the square root of negative $1$ dates back to
the days when people viewed such numbers ...
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What is the modern interpretation of Gauss's "Summatorische Function"?
In Buhler's biography of Gauss (Gauss: A Biographical Study), at the chapter on modular forms and hypergeometric series, he mentions a function that Gauss called "Summatorische Function", which he ...
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gauss' opinion on de moivre's theorem
What did Gauss mean when he said that you'd never be a good mathematician if you didn't think that De Moivre's theorem was obvious? I'm looking for a specifically historically correct answer with ...
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Variants in graphical presentation of real and complex numbers
It's standard nowadays for the real line to be horizontal (negative numbers on the left, positive numbers on the right) and for $i$ to be above (rather than below) 0 in the complex plane. Were these ...
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Did Gauss know the residues theorem in complex analysis in 1811?
My question refers to Gauss's 1811 letter to Friedrich Bessel, which contains a statement of Cauchy integral theorem. I have access to the letter, but I'm unable to read it. I know that Gauss gives ...
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Were complex number first considered of limited usefulness?
Were complex numbers ever considered to be of limited usefulness that is not very useful in practice (unlike modern science where we strongly need complex numbers)?
Note my question is not about ...
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Who came up with the link between the spectrum of an operator and the poles of a meromorphic function?
From Dieudonné's "History of Functional Analysis" I learned that Picard in 1893 gave a characterization of an eigenvalue of the Laplacian as the simple pole of a meromorphic function.
Is there an ...
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What is the history of using $i$/$\iota$ as the imaginary unit?
I'm interested in particular in knowing about when $\iota$ began to be used as the imaginary unit/who began to use it.
A majority of all text books that I have seen tend to just use $i$ as the ...
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History of complex analysis
Does anyone know of a good book on the history of imaginary numbers and complex analysis and its role in physics?
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Introduction of $\imath$ and $\jmath$ notations for the imaginary unit
The imaginary unit is generally denoted $i$ or $\imath$. I have learned that the term imaginary ("imaginaires") was coined by R. Descartes in 1637, and the "i" notation was introduced by L. Euler (cf. ...
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Origin of Klein's $j$-invariant
Today Klein's $j$-invariant is used in various context's, the most famous one being maybe "Monstrous Moonshine". But what was the original motivation for the study of the $j$-invariant?
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Euler's first proof of $e^{ix}=\cos(x)+i\sin(x)$
What was Euler's first proof of his famous formula?
In Euler's book on complex functions he used the following proof. But was this his first proof?
Euler starts with writing down De Moivre's Formula (...
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The origins of complex differentiation/integration
What questions led to the invention of complex differentiation/integration? How were their definitions agreed upon?
Real differentiation/integration has an obvious meaning. To extend calculus to the ...
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When did people know that all real polynomials of degree greater than 2 were reducible?
Admittedly, this may not be a research level question, but I am deeply curious about this.
Let $f(x) \in \mathbb{R}[x]$, and write $d = \deg f$. It is well known that if $\deg f > 2$, then $f$ is ...
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Analytic and holomorphic functions, definitions and foundations?
If you search for the definition of analytic and holomorphic functions in books and online, you get crosses between two definitions (one involving taylor series and one differential) I can find no ...
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First papers on holomorphic functions
Briot and/or Cauchy are often said to have written the first papers on holomorphic functions, explicitly discussing them as such and their special properties.
Which papers are these? When and where ...
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Did Dedekind show any evidence of pictorial geometric sense?
The most pictorial geometric thinking I find in Dedekind is the intuitive-geometric idea of a continuum which he criticizes as too vague before he gives his account of the continuum based on cuts.
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Who named the fugacity, who coined the variable name and did it already relate to complex analysis?
In Riemanns monumental paper, he expresses a prime counting function as an inverse Mellin transform of the log of the function he analytically continued into the complex plane
$$\Pi(x) = \frac{1}{2\...
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What was Euler's motivation for introducing $i$ for $\sqrt{-1}$?
[Mauro Allegranza has answered the question of who introduced the notation $i$ (Euler, followed later by Gauss), so I have changed the title. I have also edited the question in other ways to make it ...
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