Lots of fun counter examples to this. Complex numbers were introduced in the 160... | Hacker News

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jvans 4 months ago | parent | context | favorite | on: What's a mathematician to do? (2010)

Lots of fun counter examples to this. Complex numbers were introduced in the 1600s with no practical application for almost 300 years until they were used in electromagnetism and quantum mechanics.

lmm 4 months ago [–]

> Complex numbers were introduced in the 1600s with no practical application for almost 300 years.

On the contrary, complex numbers were introduced to make the cubic formula work.

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