Complex plane

Revision as of 16:54, 21 September 2006 by JBL (talk | contribs)

The complex plane is one representation of the complex numbers. It is a coordinate plane with two perpendicular axes, the real axis (typically plotted as the horizontal axis) and the imaginary axis (typically plotted as the vertical axis). Any complex number $z$ can be plotted on it, with the real part $\mathrm{Re}(z)$ as the real (horizontal) coordinate and the imaginary part $\mathrm{Im}(z)$ as the imaginary (vertical) coordinate. The intersection of the two axes (the origin of the coordinate system) corresponds to the complex number 0, while a point two units to the right and one unit down from the origin corresponds to the complex number $2 - i$.

See also