HACKER Q&A
📣 alexfromapex

Can quantum computers represent imaginary number i?


If the imaginary number i is defined as sqrt(-1)

and a quantum computer could have a number be simultaneously 1 and -1 due to superposition would that allow the square root to be solved by a quantum representation that is a combination of both?

  👤 kadoban Accepted Answer ✓
A regular computer can already represent i. You can do complex math on them fine, it's just a matter of specifying what the bits mean and the rules they follow.

I don't think that has anything to do with quantum or not, and I'm not sure what there is to "solve" about the sqrt(-1). We know what it is, it's just called i in the complex numbers (by definition). There's not another level to go down and explore. (in some other number systems, like the reals, sqrt(-1) just doesn't exist because no number times itself is -1).

👤 fortran77
Fortran 77, my favorite programming language, supported imaginary numbers. Back in 1977

https://www.obliquity.com/computer/fortran/datatype.html

Fortran IV, did, too:

http://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/courses/cs323/FORTRAN/fortran....

...in 1957.