How were negative numbers eliminated?
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I think this fact is interesting, I think it shows the utility of complex numbers (you can solve things you could not do before, interesting special case is when you go via complex to get real solutions) But this is not all they do
It might be that over time, the new concept proves itself so useful for this purpose that it's established as something so fundamental that the original system (the natural numbers without negative numbers, or the reals without complex numbers) seems less useful.
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Do you still assert they only exist to be "eliminated"?
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I agree with
@berenguel, more like they subsume the existing thing than are later eliminated (though I am really struggling to understand if "eliminated" means removed from mathematics or means it has this property you seem to like to see expressions have sometimes ) - Show replies
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