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There may be times when you have to do numerical computation
on complex values (scalars, vectors, or matrices).
If you are programming in Fortran, no problem, the types
complex and complex*16 or double complex are built in.
In Ada 95, the full set of complex arithmetic and functions
come with the compiler as packages. MatLab uses complex as
needed, automatically.
In other programming languages you need to know how to do
complex computation and how to choose the appropriate
numerical method.
Background:
A complex number is stored in the computer as an ordered pair
of floating point numbers, the real part and the imaginary part.
The floating point numbers may be single or double precision as
needed by the application. It is suggested that you use double
precision as the default.
There are called Cartesian coordinates. Polar coordinates are
seldom used for computation, yet, are usually made available by
a conversion function to magnitude and angle. Note that
numerical analyst call the angle by the name "argument".
The naming convention depends on the programming language and
personal (or customer) choice.
Basic complex arithmetic is covered first and then complex
functions: sin, cos, tan, sinh, cosh, tanh, exp, log, sqrt, pow
are covered in the next lecture.
The simplest need for complex numbers is solving for the roots
of the polynomial equation x^2 + 1 = 0 .
There must be exactly two roots and they are sqrt(-1) and
-sqrt(-1) that are named "i" and "-i".
The quadratic equation for finding roots of a second order
polynomial should use the complex sqrt, even for real coefficients
a, b, and c, because the roots may be complex.
given: a x^2 + b x + c = 0 find the roots
b +/- sqrt(b^2 - 4 a c)
solution x = -----------------------
2 a
that computes complex roots if 4 a c > b^2
Of course, the equation correctly computes the roots when
a, b, and c are complex numbers.
The basic complex arithmetic (including some functions for
the next lecture) are in Complex.java
The automatically generated documentation is Complex.html
The basic complex arithmetic in C uses simple named functions
as shown in the header file complex.h
and the body complex.c
with a test program test_complex.c
The built in Ada package generic_complex_types.ads
provides complex arithmetic. Note the many operator definitions.
The use of complex in Ada is shown in this small program:
complx.adb
The use of complex in Fortran 95 is shown in this small program:
complx.f90
C++ has the STL class Complex and can be used as shown
test_complex.cpp
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