Definition:Complex Plane/Historical Note
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Historical Note on Complex Plane
It is reported by Ian Stewart and David Tall, in their Complex Analysis (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Plane) of $1983$, that John Wallis represented a complex number using this technique in his A Treatise on Algebra, but for some reason was ignored.
This has not been corroborated by $\mathsf{Pr} \infty \mathsf{fWiki}$, and there may be some doubt as to its truth, considering the given publication date of A Treatise on Algebra ($1673$) does not match that given by all other sources found ($1685$).
It is widely reported that the concept of the complex plane was an invention of Caspar Wessel, independently of Jean-Robert Argand and Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Sources
- 1983: Ian Stewart and David Tall: Complex Analysis (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Plane) ... (previous) ... (next): $0$ The origins of complex analysis, and a modern viewpoint: $1$. The origins of complex numbers