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To: WIMom
Real numbers denote electrical resistance, imaginary numbers denote reactance, and complex numbers denote impedance.

What's particularly useful is that Ohm's law holds with complex numbers. If one has a linear circuit (a circuit consisting of nothing but resistors, caps, inductors, and 'perfect' amplifiers) and wishes to see how it will behave when driven at a particular frequency, after computing the reactances of all the caps and inductors at that frequency one can easily figure the voltage at any point in the circuit or current through any wire. If a voltage is, e.g., 3+(3i) volts, that means that there will be a sine wave there with an amplitude of about 4.2 [sqrt(3^2+3^2)] volts, whose phase leads that of the driving signal by 45 degrees.

253 posted on 12/08/2001 10:21:56 PM PST by supercat
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To: supercat
Yes, it is very useful...for electrical engineers. Luckily, I only had to take 2 semesters of those courses. LOL! I'll stick with the interesting manufacturing processes and machines *VBG*
254 posted on 12/08/2001 10:32:16 PM PST by WIMom
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