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How should complex numbers be displayed?

Mathematical naive question:

What is the “canonical” way of representing 14 + 1i?

14+i1

or

 14+i

In the same way, perhaps in the "real world", that scientific notation will creep into a complex number to confuse the complex parser of numbers? For instance,

 1.2345E+02-1.7002E-09i

Edit: Finally, this

 8.45358210351126e+066i

or

 8.45358210351126e+66i

i.e. does one zero file up to three digits on an imaginary?

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4 answers

No problem with MATLAB:

 >> 5+i ans = 5.0000 + 1.0000i >> 5+1i ans = 5.0000 + 1.0000i >> 1.2345E+02-1.7002E-09i ans = 1.2345e+002 -1.7002e-009i

I think it shows that scientific notation (" E ") in complex numbers is pretty well handled in the "real world" ... to the extent that MATLAB is an influential part of this world =)

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My preference would be:

 14 + i

Somehow it is more pleasant to my eyes than 14 + 1i.

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I would introduce your first example as:

 14 + 1i

And I would certainly expect to see scientific notation in complex numbers. For example, Python gladly accepts the following (using j as required by Python):

 >>> 1.2345E+02-1.7002E-09j (123.45-1.7002e-09j)
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"14 + 1i" is better than "14 + i1", but I’m more likely to say or write "14 + i".

In addition, 1.7002E-09i (which I have not seen in Maths, although, of 1.7002E-09i , this happens in engineering or something) looks a bit ambiguous without a superscript (you mean 1.7002*(10 ** -9)*i or 1.7002*(10 ** -9*i) ?) and therefore (1.7002E-09)i could be better.

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