I wish I could remember the source: I once read a description of a bank account which paid interest at a rate of i, compounded continuously. So if you start with one dollar, then after time epsilon, you get i*epsilon dollars -- which of course start compounding too, depositing -- egads -- negative interest into the real part of your account! The end result was a lovely and convincing explanation that e^(i pi)=-1. Ring any bells? On Mar 7, 2004, at 5:58 PM, Jon Perry wrote:
A minor deviation from the thrust of this mutex, I am remembering a previous thread in which the concept of negative money was brought into play. Just a thought - surely money based on the complex numbers is by far the more aesthetic norm.
--Michael Kleber kleber@brandeis.edu