Re: [math-fun] The Axiom of Choice for roots of z^2 + 1

In an effort to write a reply even shorter than the shortest PhD thesis discussed here, my response is merely Oh. Steve Gray Dan Asimov wrote:

<< If i and -i were treated as indistinguishable, wouldn't this destroy the map of the complexes onto the XY plane?

<< I think . . . Rather than addition, start with . . . i=-i . . .

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My point about the complex roots of X^2 + 1 being indistinguishable was not to say that in any sense they are equal*.

Just that there is no way of specifying one rather than the other.

--Dan