science · 18 July 1768 · 256 years ago
birth
Born 18 Jul 1768; died 13 Aug 1822 at age 54.
Swiss accountant and mathematician who was one of the earliest to use complex numbers, which he applied to show that all algebraic equations have roots. His name is associated with the Argand diagram, a geometrical representation of complex numbers as points in a Cartesian plane, with the real portion of the number on the x axis and the imaginary part on the y axis. He self-published this concept in an anonymous monograph (1806). Though talented in mathematics, he remained an amateur; his livelihood was as an accountant and bookkeeper. Although Argand's name became associated with this idea, the geometrical interpretation of complex numbers appeared earliest in work by Caspar Wessel (1787), first presented on 10 Mar 1797 to a the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and published in 1799.
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