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Precalculus
Course: Precalculus > Unit 3
Lesson 3: Complex conjugates and dividing complex numbersDividing complex numbers
Sal divides (6+3i) by (7-5i). Created by Sal Khan and Monterey Institute for Technology and Education.
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- How do you know what the conjugate is? Do you just flip the middle sign?(57 votes)
- By definition, the conjugate is the form "a-bi" of an imaginary number "a+bi". You just have to change the sign of the IMAGINARY part.(191 votes)
- Why always the emphasis on the denominator? Sal always seems quite concerned about simplifying his denominators (more than his numerators), but I do not really see the exact need of getting rid of the imaginary number in the denominator, other than maybe it is more practical if one is trying to do a very complex, mutli-step problem. And in any case, there is still an imaginary number in the numerator. Am I missing something or is he just showing us a possible tool to use here??(17 votes)
- The reason for getting rid of the complex parts of the equation in the denominator is because its not easy to divide by complex numbers, so to make it a real number, which is a whole lot easier to divide by, we have to multiply it by a number that will get rid of all the imaginary numbers, and a good number to use is the conjugate.(29 votes)
- Why is 1/i = -i ? Intuition or proof please. (I've never seen this definition on any of the Khan Academy videos. But first came across it under 'hints' of the "Dividing Complex Numbers" exercise.)(14 votes)
- You can multiply and divide the term 1/i by 'i'. This gives you:
(1 x i)/(i x i) , and as i^2 is -1, denominator becomes -1 and numerator is i. Hence it simplifies to -i.(26 votes)
- Why is it not good to have a complex number in the denominator?(14 votes)
- managing to get rid of the complex number in the denominator is useful because then you can write it with the form a + bi with a and b rationnals(14 votes)
- Help! I don't get it. I want to be smart like Sal. Explain please! I need different ways to do this.(7 votes)
- You are smart. You have to work for it :)(20 votes)
- so if it was 7+5i will we do 7-5i instead please answer and thank you(6 votes)
- Yes. It works both ways. If the original denominator was 7+5i, then it's cognate is 7-5i. Just remember that you have to switch the sign of the imaginary number. The real number always stays the same.(12 votes)
- Atsal says 0/0 is undefined why? 1:18(5 votes)
- Division by zero is an operation for which you cannot find an answer, so it is disallowed. You can understand why if you think about how division and multiplication are related.
12 divided by 6 is 2 because: 6 times 2 is 12
Now image 12/0:
12 divided by 0 is x would mean that: 0 times x = 12
But no value would work for x because 0 times any number is 0. So division by zero doesn't work.(10 votes)
- What's the difference between a reciprocal and a conjugate?(4 votes)
- A reciprocal for a number n is 1/n or n^-1. It is also called the multiplicative inverse. The reciprocal function y=1/x forms a hyperbola graph, except for x=0.
Now, as Sal says, conjugate is an algebraic tool and is used to rationalize the denominator of a fraction. We applied this in Grade 8 Math. Take this example:
(1+2^1/2) / (2+2*2^1/2)
= (1+2^1/2) / (2+2*2^1/2) * (2-2*2^1/2) / (2-2*2^1/2)
= (1+2^1/2)(2-2*2^1/2) / (2+2*2^1/2)(2-2*2^1/2)
= {(2 - 2*(2^1/2) + 2*(2^1/2) - 2*(2^1/2)*(2^1/2)} / -4
=-2 / -4
=1/2
Now here (2-2*2^1/2) is the conjugate of (2+2*2^1/2). Conjugate is a binomial formed by negating the second term of the originial binomial. For complex numbers, a-bi is the conjugate of a+bi.
I hope I have been able to make the difference clear.(5 votes)
- Why is it in the excercise you can divide 20i by 5 and get 4i? When Sal has been saying all along that i is in it's own category and you cannot just put it together with real numbers.(3 votes)
- Because 20i is 20 times i. The one we are dividing by 5 is not i but 20.
This might help.
20i=
20*i
4*5*i
That's why.....
20i/5=4i
because.....
4*5*i/5---------------->we can see that the 5s will cancel out
4i----------------------->and that's how we got our answer.(7 votes)
- How do you raise complex numbers to exponents?(4 votes)
- EpicOne,
(3i)² is (9 * i*i) = 9 * -1 = =9
(3i)³ = 27 * i*i*i = 27 * -1 * i = -27i
(2+3i)² = (4+6i+6i+9*i*i) = 4+12i - 9 = -5+12i
Here is a practice set on raising complex numbers to powers graphically.
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/trigonometry/imaginary_complex_precalc/complex_analysis/e/powers_of_complex_numbers_1
Use the "I'd like a hint" button to see how to solve. By doing it graphically, it helps you understand the concepts in additional ways.
I hope that helps.(4 votes)
Video transcript
We're asked to divide. And we're dividing six plus three i by seven minus 5i. And in particular, when I divide this, I want to get another complex number. So I want to get some real number plus some imaginary number, so some multiple of i's. So let's think about how we can do this. Well, division is the same thing -- and we rewrite this as six plus three i over seven minus five i. These are clearly equivalent; dividing by something is the same thing as a rational expression where that something is in the denominator, right over here. And so how do we simplify this? Well, we have a tool in our toolkit that can make sure that we don't have an imaginary or complex number in the denominator. And that's the complex conjugate. If we multiply both the numerator and the denominator of this expression by the complex conjugate of the denominator, then we will have a real number in the denominator. So let's do that. Let's multiply the numerator and the denominator by the conjugate of this. So seven PLUS five i. Seven plus five i is the complex conjegate of seven minus five i. So we're going to multiply it by seven plus five i over seven plus five i. And anything divided by itself is going to be one (assuming you're not dealing with zero; zero over zero is undefined). But seven plus five i over seven plus five i is one. So we're not changing the value of this. But what this does is it allows us to get rid of the imaginary part in the denominator. So let's multiply this out. Our numerator -- we just have to multiply every part of this complex number times every part of this complex number. You can think of it as FOIL if you like; we're really just doing the distributive property twice. We have six times seven, which is forty two. And then we have six times five i, which is thirty i. So plus thirty i. And then we have three i times seven, so that's plus twenty-one i. And then finally we have three i times five i. Three times five is fifteen. But we have i times i, or i squared, which is negative one. So it would be fifteen times negative one, or minus 15. So that's our numerator. And then our denomenator is going to be -- Well, we have a plus b times a minus b. (You could think of it that way. Or we could just do what we did up here. Actually, let's just do what we did up here so you don't have to remember that difference of squares pattern and all that.) Seven times seven is forty-nine. Let's think of it in the FOIL way, if that is helpful for you. So first we did the 7X7. And we can do the outer terms. 7 X 5i is +35i. Then we can do the inner terms. -5i X 7 is -35i. These two are going to cancel out. And then -5i X 5i is -25i^2 ("negative twenty five i squared"). -25i^2 is the same thing as -25 times -1, so that is +25. Now let's simplify it. These guys down here cancel out. Our denominator simplifies to 49 + 25 is 74. And our numerator: we can add the real parts, so we have a 42 and a -15. Let's see: 42 - 5 would be 37, minus another 10 would be 27. So that is 27. And then we're going to add our 30i, plus the 21i -- so 30 of something plus another 21 of that same something is going to be 51 of that something, in this case that something is the imaginary unit; it is i. (We'll do this in magenta; o, I guess that's orange.) So this is +51i. And I want to write it in the form of "a+bi," the traditional complex number form. So this right over here is the same thing as 27/74, 27/74 + 51/74 times i. (I'm going to write that i in that same orange color.) And we are done. We have a real part, and we have an imaginary part. If this last step confuses you a little bit, just remember, if it's helpful for you that this is the same thing. We're essentially multiplying both of these terms times 1/74. We're dividing both of these terms by 74. And we're distributing the 1/74 times both of these, I guess is one way to think about it. And that's how we got this thing over here, where we have a nice real part and a nice imaginary part.