Quantum mechanics has at last been formulated exclusively with real numbers, bringing a mathematical puzzle at the heart of ...

For the first time, researchers have seen how light behaves during a mysterious phenomenon called 'imaginary time'. When you shine light through almost any transparent material, the gridlock of ...

Imaginary numbers might seem like unicorns and goblins — interesting but irrelevant to reality. But for describing matter at its roots, imaginary numbers turn out to be essential. They seem to be ...

To a nonmathematician, having the letter "i" represent a number that does not quite exist and is "imaginary" can be hard to ...

It should be impossible to measure an imaginary number in the lab, but a group of researchers have found a way to do so. They produced the equivalent of a magnetic field of imaginary strength, meaning ...

Many complicated advances in research mathematics are spurred by a desire to understand some of the simplest questions about numbers. How are prime numbers distributed in the integers? Are there ...