I loved school a lot, and enjoyed most of my lessons.

…I just couldn’t stand a few of my classmates, is all… xD

Most of us want playtime instead of going to school! That’s what normal people want when we were little.

@PUBLIQclopAccountant  

 
Sorry to be a pedant (not really sorry), but if you’re going all up and down anything, shouldn’t it be the Z-axis? :)

@Yet One More Idiot  
Oh yeah integrate me all up and down the x-axis, baby!

WAT.

Ah, Twiley…I feel your pain. I loved school too - just not some of the other students (I was the victim of bullying for many years).
 
 
@mathprofbrony  
I would just like to add…
 

 
…is one of the most mathematically elegant statements I ever learnt. I also enjoyed the entire 2hr lecture where we learnt to calculate the area under the curve of y = e ^(-x2)^ over the set of all reals.
 
Yep, my degree was in pure maths. :D I think I could’ve been such good friends with Twiley… :3

Usually the kids don’t wanna go to school.

Said no filly ever.

This is adorable.

Me when I was 6 XD

@mathprofbrony  
Ah, that makes sense.

@Exedrus  

 
Yeah, that was what I was getting at. Convincing kids about the value of fractions or basic algebra is comparatively easy because you can pull real world examples to demonstrate and show them “This is how this information will be useful”. Imaginary units like those seem too specialised for the average student to care about.
 
@mathprofbrony
 
Huh. So that’s quantum mechanics. I just thought that was something tv eggheads throw around to sound smart, like technobabble.

@Tranquil Night  

 
The power of quantum mechanics comes from the fact that a probability distribution (“how likely is it that this object will be in this area?”) replaces classical mechanics’ real probabilities with complex probabilities that end up yielding different effects. And since quantum mechanics is the way the world works, it’s more accurate to say that reality is described by complex numbers (on quantum scales, at least) than that it’s described by real numbers.

@mathprofbrony  
I see no reason why they taught us i in algebra class. It has no reachable value, so why should anyone, except for theoretical mathematicians, even need to know about how to reach it? To me, it seems about equally as important as knowing the length of a potrzebie.
 
Oh my, why did I rant about i?
 
Despite my malicious hatred toward imaginary numbers, you gave a great explanation. :P

@WM-R  
It’s sometimes used in physics and engineering. For instance, electrical engineering uses imaginary units in circuit analysis. Although otherwise it’s not really generally useful in most day-to-day situations.

@Chicago Ted
 
@Background Pony #96DC
 
@mathprofbrony
 
Thanks for the explanation. I cannot even begin to imagine how the heck you’re going to convince kids they’ll need that kind of knowledge after leaving school.
 
@mathprofbrony
 
Your name is admirably well-suited.

@mathprofbrony  
Square root of -1. Hey, I was right!

I hear the call of my cutie mark!
 
@Background Pony #96DC  

 
To be precise:
 
i is the square root of -1. That is, the equation x^2 = -1 has solutions x=i and x=-i.
 
A number is real if it is one of the usual numbers: 3, -12, pi, -14.5, sqrt(2), etc.
 
A number is purely imaginary if it is c i for some real number c. So 3i, -12i, pi i, -14.5i, (sqrt(2))i etc., are all purely imaginary.
 
A number is complex if it has both a real and an imaginary part: numbers of the form a + bi are complex.
 
Of the roots of -1, there is one real root, -1 itself, which is its own first root (as anything is its own first root); two purely imaginary roots, i and -i, which are its square (2nd) roots; and all the rest of its roots, whether even or odd, are complex, of the form a+bi, with a = cos(2pi* k/n) and b = sin(2pi* k/n) for some rational number k/n. For instance, the cube (third) roots of -1 are
 
cos(2pi1/6) + sin(2pi1/6) i, and
 
cos(2pi5/6) + sin(2pi5/6) i.
 
Note that any root of -1 is also a root of 1, by doubling the power: a cube root of -1 is a sixth root of 1. You can think of all of these roots as points on the circle of radius 1 around the origin; if you’re a rational fraction of the way around (that’s 2pi radians) from the point (1,0), then you’re at some root of 1, and if your fraction of 2pi radians has an even denominator in lowest terms, you’re at a root of -1.

@WM-R  
An imaginary number is an even root (square, 4th, 6th root, etc.) of a negative number, represented by the symbol i, i.e. 3i = imaginary 3.

@WM-R @Mildgyth  
Something to do with the square root of -1, if I recall correctly from my junior math class back in high school.

@WM-R
 
Not even i remember anymore.

@ShadowSlut
 
To be fair, you could argue the same of almost any subject. English essays just get longer, for example.
 
Though I can relate. I was terrible at Maths because I could never get the formulas down, and trying to force it through repetition just made me resentful. Much later when I was idly trying to figure it out myself, suddenly things clicked.
 
@Mildgyth
 
I have no idea what most of those things you list mean. What the frag is an imaginary number?

@Background Pony #2572  

 
*asocial. Anti-social is much different.

Anti-social forever. 🙂