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Comment by another-cuppa | Hacker News Reader

It's not a terrible name, it's just that we've forgotten the real meaning of "complex" and use it as a synonym for "complicated".

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kowdermeister wrote about imaginary numbers, not complex numbers. "Imaginary" is a terrible name, because all numbers are imaginary. Even integers are imaginary, in the sense that the percentage of integers with actual physical representations is 0%, rounded to however many decimal places you like. "Real" is a terrible name for numbers for the same reason.

"Complex" was originally justifiable but it should be renamed to reflect changes in the English language.

What would happen if we started renaming mathematical objects to reflect changes in the English language? English will continue to evolve, and the vast body of mathematical literature would have to be constantly rewritten.

Wouldn't that cause much, much greater confusion due to mathematical nomenclature being a moving target rather than remaining stable?

Mathematical nomenclature is already a moving target. And the symbols don't have to change, only the English reading of them, e.g. ∫ is from the latin "summa" (sum), but you don't need to know that to read it as "integral"

I can't think of any examples of mathematical objects being renamed, do you have any?

There may be some amount of drift over time, but you can go to the research library of any university math department and find books from pre-WWII that are still totally readable because although style has shifted somewhat, the basic nomenclature hasn't.

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