Complex Numbers Primer 1

Complex Numbers Primer

Before I get started on this let me first make it clear that this document is not intended to teach you
everything there is to know about complex numbers. That is a subject that can (and does) take a whole
course to cover. The purpose of this document is to give you a brief overview of complex numbers,
notation associated with complex numbers, and some of the basic operations involving complex
numbers.

This document has been written with the assumption that you’ve seen complex numbers at some point
in the past, know (or at least knew at some point in time) that complex numbers can be solutions to
quadratic equations, know (or recall) i= −1 , and that you’ve seen how to do basic arithmetic with
complex numbers. If you don’t remember how to do arithmetic I will show an example or two to remind
you how to do arithmetic, but I’m going to assume that you don’t need more than that as a reminder.

For most students the assumptions I’ve made above about their exposure to complex numbers is the
extent of their exposure. Problems tend to arise however because most instructors seem to assume
that either students will see beyond this exposure in some later class or have already seen beyond this
in some earlier class. Students are then suddenly expected to know more than basic arithmetic of
complex numbers but often haven’t actually seen it anywhere and have to quickly pick it up on their
own in order to survive in the class.

That is the purpose of this document. We will go beyond the basics that most students have seen at
some point and show you some of the notation and operations involving complex numbers that many
students don’t ever see once they learn how to deal with complex numbers as solutions to quadratic
equations. We’ll also be seeing a slightly different way of looking at some of the basics that you
probably didn’t see when you were first introduced to complex numbers and proving some of the basic
facts.

The first section is a more mathematical definition of complex numbers and is not really required for
understanding the remainder of the document. It is presented solely for those who might be interested.

The second section (arithmetic) is assumed to be mostly a review for those reading this document and
can be read if you need a quick refresher on how to do basic arithmetic with complex numbers. Also
included in this section is a more precise definition of subtraction and division than is normally given
when a person is first introduced to complex numbers. Again, understanding these definitions is not
required for the remainder of the document they are only presented so you can say you’ve seen it.

The remaining sections are the real point of this document and involve the topics that are typically not
taught when students are first exposed to complex numbers.

So, with that out of the way, let’s get started…

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 2

The Definition

As I’ve already stated, I am assuming that you have seen complex numbers to this point and that you’re
aware that i= −1 and so i 2 = −1 . This is an idea that most people first see in an algebra class (or
wherever they first saw complex numbers) and i= −1 is defined so that we can deal with square
roots of negative numbers as follows,
−=
100 −1)
(100 )(= 100 =
−1 =
100 i 10 i

What I’d like to do is give a more mathematical definition of a complex numbers and show that i 2 = −1
(and hence i= −1 ) can be thought of as a consequence of this definition. We’ll also take a look at
how we define arithmetic for complex numbers.

What we’re going to do here is going to seem a little backwards from what you’ve probably already seen
but is in fact a more accurate and mathematical definition of complex numbers. Also note that this
section is not really required to understand the remaining portions of this document. It is here solely to
show you a different way to define complex numbers.

So, let’s give the definition of a complex number.

Given two real numbers a and b we will define the complex number z as,

z= a + bi (1)

Note that at this point we’ve not actually defined just what i is at this point. The number a is called the
real part of z and the number b is called the imaginary part of z and are often denoted as,

=Re z a=Im z b (2)

There are a couple of special cases that we need to look at before proceeding. First, let’s take a look at a
complex number that has a zero real part,
z =0 + bi =bi
In these cases, we call the complex number a pure imaginary number.

Next, let’s take a look at a complex number that has a zero imaginary part,
z =a + 0i =a
In this case we can see that the complex number is in fact a real number. Because of this we can think
of the real numbers as being a subset of the complex numbers.

We next need to define how we do addition and multiplication with complex numbers. Given two
complex numbers z1= a + bi and z2 = c + di we define addition and multiplication as follows,

z1 + z2 = ( a + c ) + ( b + d ) i (3)
z1 z2 = ( ac − bd ) + ( ad + cb ) i (4)

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 3

Now, if you’ve seen complex numbers prior to this point you will probably recall that these are the
formulas that were given for addition and multiplication of complex numbers at that point. However,
the multiplication formula that you were given at that point in time required the use of i 2 = −1 to
completely derive and for this section we don’t yet know that is true. In fact, as noted previously
i 2 = −1 will be a consequence of this definition as we’ll see shortly.

Above we noted that we can think of the real numbers as a subset of the complex numbers. Note that
the formulas for addition and multiplication of complex numbers give the standard real number
formulas as well. For instance, given the two complex numbers,
z1 =
a + 0i z2 =
c + 0i
the formulas yield the correct formulas for real numbers as seen below.

z1 + z2 =( a + c ) + ( 0 + 0 ) i =a + c
z1 z2 =( ac − ( 0)( 0) ) + ( a ( 0) + c ( 0) ) i =ac
The last thing to do in this section is to show that i 2 = −1 is a consequence of the definition of
multiplication. However, before we do that we need to acknowledge that powers of complex numbers
work just as they do for real numbers. In other words, if n is a positive integer we will define
exponentiation as,
zn = ⋅ z
z ⋅
z
n times

So, let’s start by looking at i 2 , use the definition of exponentiation and the use the definition of
multiplication on that. Doing this gives,
i2 = i ⋅ i
( 0 + 1i )( 0 + 1i )
=
= ( ( 0)( 0) − (1)(1) ) + ( ( 0)(1) + ( 0)(1) ) i
= −1

So, by defining multiplication as we’ve done above we get that i 2 = −1 as a consequence of the
definition instead of just stating that this is a true fact. If we now take to be the standard square
root, i.e. what did we square to get the quantity under the radical, we can see that i= −1 .

Arithmetic

Before proceeding in this section let me first say that I’m assuming that you’ve seen arithmetic with
complex numbers at some point before and most of what is in this section is going to be a review for
you. I am also going to be introducing subtraction and division in a way that you probably haven’t seen
prior to this point, but the results will be the same and aren’t important for the remaining sections of
this document.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 4

In the previous section we defined addition and multiplication of complex numbers and showed that
i 2 = −1 is a consequence of how we defined multiplication. However, in practice, we generally don’t
multiply complex numbers using the definition. In practice we tend to just multiply two complex
numbers much like they were polynomials and then make use of the fact that we now know that
i 2 = −1 .

Just so we can say that we’ve worked an example let’s do a quick addition and multiplication of complex
numbers.

Example 1 Compute each of the following.

(a) ( 58 − i ) + ( 2 − 17i )
(b) ( 6 + 3i )(10 + 8i )
(c) ( 4 + 2i )( 4 − 2i )
Solution
As noted above, I’m assuming that this is a review for you and so won’t be going into great detail
here.
(a) ( 58 − i ) + ( 2 − 17i ) = 58 − i + 2 − 17i = 60 − 18i
(b) ( 6 + 3i )(10 + 8i ) = 60 + 48i + 30i + 24i = 60 + 78i + 24 ( −1) = 36 + 78i
2

(c) ( 4 + 2i )( 4 − 2i ) = 16 − 8i + 8i − 4i 2 = 16 + 4 = 20

It is important to recall that sometimes when adding or multiplying two complex numbers the result
might be a real number as shown in the third part of the previous example!

The third part of the previous example also gives a nice property about complex numbers.

( a + bi )( a − bi ) =a 2 + b2 (1)

We’ll be using this fact with division and looking at it in slightly more detail in the next section.

Let’s now take a look at the subtraction and division of two complex numbers. Hopefully, you recall that
if we have two complex numbers, z1= a + bi and z2= c + di then you subtract them as,
z1 − z2 = ( a + bi ) − ( c + di ) = ( a − c ) + ( b − d ) i (2)

And that division of two complex numbers,

z1 a + bi
= (3)
z2 c + di

can be thought of as simply a process for eliminating the i from the denominator and writing the result
as a new complex number u + vi .

Let’s take a quick look at an example of both to remind us how they work.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 5

Example 2 Compute each of the following.

(a) ( 58 − i ) − ( 2 − 17i )
6 + 3i
(b)
10 + 8i
5i
(c)
1 − 7i
Solution
(a) There really isn’t too much to do here so here is the work,
( 58 − i ) − ( 2 − 17i ) = 58 − i − 2 + 17i = 56 + 16i
(b) Recall that with division we just need to eliminate the i from the denominator and using (1) we
know how to do that. All we need to do is multiply the numerator and denominator by 10 − 8i and
we will eliminate the i from the denominator.
6 + 3i
=
( 6 + 3i ) (10 − 8i )
10 + 8i (10 + 8i ) (10 − 8i )
60 − 48i + 30i − 24i 2
=
100 + 64
84 − 18i
=
164
84 18 21 9
= − i= − i
164 164 41 82
(c) We’ll do this one a little quicker.
5i 5i (1 + 7i ) −35 + 5i 7 1
= = =
− + i
1 − 7i (1 − 7i ) (1 + 7i ) 1 + 49 10 10

Now, for the most part this is all that you need to know about subtraction and multiplication of complex
numbers for this rest of this document. However, let’s take a look at a more precise and mathematical
definition of both of these. If you aren’t interested in this then you can skip this and still be able to
understand the remainder of this document.

The remainder of this document involves topics that are typically first taught in a Abstract/Modern
Algebra class. Since we are going to be applying them to the field of complex variables we won’t be
going into great detail about the concepts. Also note that we’re going to be skipping some of the ideas
and glossing over some of the details that don’t really come into play in complex numbers. This will
especially be true with the “definitions” of inverses. The definitions I’ll be giving below are correct for
complex numbers, but in a more general setting are not quite correct. You don’t need to worry about
this in general to understand what were going to be doing below. I just wanted to make it clear that I’m
skipping some of the more general definitions for easier to work with definitions that are valid in
complex numbers.

Okay, now that I’ve got the warnings/notes out of the way let’s get started on the actual topic…

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 6

Technically, the only arithmetic operations that are defined on complex numbers are addition and
multiplication. This means that both subtraction and division will, in some way, need to be defined in
terms of these two operations. We’ll start with subtraction since it is (hopefully) a little easier to see.

We first need to define something called an additive inverse. An additive inverse is some element
typically denoted by − z so that
z + ( − z ) =0 (4)

Now, in the general field of abstract algebra, − z is just the notation for the additive inverse and in many
cases is NOT given by − z = ( −1) z ! Luckily for us however, with complex variables that is exactly how
the additive inverse is defined and so for a given complex number z= a + bi the additive inverse, − z ,
is given by,
− z =( −1) z =−a − bi
It is easy to see that this does meet the definition of the additive inverse and so that won’t be shown.

With this definition we can now officially define the subtraction of two complex numbers. Given two
complex numbers z1= a + bi and z2= c + di we define the subtraction of them as,
z1 − z2 = z1 + ( − z2 ) (5)

Or, in other words, when subtracting z2 from z1 we are really just adding the additive inverse of z2
(which is denoted by − z2 ) to z1 . If we further use the definition of the additive inverses for complex
numbers we can arrive at the formula given above for subtraction.
z1 − z2 = z1 + ( − z2 ) = ( a + bi ) + ( −c − di )= ( a − c ) + ( b − d ) i
So, that wasn’t too bad I hope. Most of the problems that students have with these kinds of topics is
that they need to forget some notation and ideas that they are very used to working with. Or, to put it
another way, you’ve always been taught that − z is just a shorthand notation for ( −1) z , but in the
general topic of abstract algebra this does not necessarily have to be the case. It’s just that in all of the
examples where you are liable to run into the notation − z in “real life”, whatever that means, we really
do mean − z = ( −1) z .

Okay, now that we have subtraction out of the way, let’s move on to division. As with subtraction we
first need to define an inverse. This time we’ll need a multiplicative inverse. A multiplicative inverse for
a non-zero complex number z is an element denoted by z −1 such that
z z −1 = 1
Now, again, be careful not to make the assumption that the “exponent” of -1 on the notation is in fact
an exponent. It isn’t! It is just a notation that is used to denote the multiplicative inverse. With real
(non-zero) numbers this turns out to be a real exponent and we do have that
1
4−1 =
4

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 7

for instance. However, with complex numbers this will not be the case! In fact, let’s see just what the
multiplicative inverse for a complex number is. Let’s start out with the complex number z= a + bi and
let’s call its multiplicative inverse z −1= u + vi . Now, we know that we must have
z z −1 = 1
so, let’s actual do the multiplication.
( a bi )( u + vi )
zz −1 =+
= ( au − bv ) + ( av + bu ) i
=1

This tells us that we have to have the following,

=
au − bv 1 =
av + bu 0
Solving this system of two equations for the two unknowns u and v (remember a and b are known
quantities from the original complex number) gives,
a b
u= v= −
a + b2
2
a + b2
2

Therefore, the multiplicative inverse of the complex number z is,

a b
=z −1 − 2 i (6)
a + b a + b2
22

As you can see, in this case, the “exponent” of -1 is not in fact an exponent! Again, you really need to
forget some notation that you’ve become familiar with in other math courses.

So, now that we have the definition of the multiplicative inverse we can finally define division of two
complex numbers. Suppose that we have two complex numbers z1 and z2 then the division of these
two is defined to be,
z1
= z1 z2−1 (7)
z2

In other words, division is defined to be the multiplication of the numerator and the multiplicative
inverse of the denominator. Note as well that this actually does match with the process that we used
above. Let’s take another look at one of the examples that we looked at earlier only this time let’s do it
using multiplicative inverses. So, let’s start out with the following division.
6 + 3i
( 6 + 3i )(10 + 8i )
−1
=
10 + 8i

We now need the multiplicative inverse of the denominator and using (6) this is,
10 8 10 − 8i
(10 + 8i ) =
−1
− 2 2=i
10 + 8 10 + 8
2 2
164
Now, we can do the multiplication,
6 + 3i 10 − 8i 60 − 48i + 30i − 24i 2 21 9
( )( ) ( )
−1
= 6 + 3i 10 + 8i =6 + 3i = = − i
10 + 8i 164 164 41 82

Notice that the second to last step is identical to one of the steps we had in the original working of this
problem and, of course, the answer is the same.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 8

As a final topic let’s note that if we don’t want to remember the formula for the multiplicative inverse
we can get it by using the process we used in the original multiplication. In other words, to get the
multiplicative inverse we can do the following
1 10 − 8i 10 − 8i
(10 + 8i )
−1
= =
(10 + 8i ) (10 − 8i ) 102 + 82
As you can see this is essentially the process we used in doing the division initially.

Conjugate and Modulus

In the previous section we looked at algebraic operations on complex numbers. There are a couple of
other operations that we should take a look at since they tend to show up on occasion. We’ll also take a
look at quite a few nice facts about these operations.

Complex Conjugate
The first one we’ll look at is the complex conjugate, (or just the conjugate). Given the complex number
z= a + bi the complex conjugate is denoted by z and is defined to be,
z= a − bi (1)

In other words, we just switch the sign on the imaginary part of the number.

Here are some basic facts about conjugates.

z=z (2)

z1 ± z2 = z1 ± z2 (3)

z1 z2 = z1 z2 (4)

 z1  z1
 = (5)
 z2  z2

The first one just says that if we conjugate twice we get back to what we started with originally and
hopefully this makes some sense. The remaining three just say we can break up sum, differences,
products and quotients into the individual pieces and then conjugate.

So, just so we can say that we worked a number example or two let’s do a couple of examples
illustrating the above facts.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 9

Example 1 Compute each of the following.

(a) z for z= 3 − 15i
(b) z1 − z2 for z1= 5 + i and z2 =−8 + 3i
(c) z1 − z2 for z1= 5 + i and z2 =−8 + 3i
Solution
There really isn’t much to do with these other than to so the work so,
(a) z =+
3 15i ⇒ z =+ 3 15i =− 3 15i =z
Sure enough we can see that after conjugating twice we get back to our original number.
(b) z1 − z2 = 13 − 2i ⇒ z1 − z2 = 13 − 2i = 13 + 2i
( )
(c) z1 − z2 = 5 + i − −8 + 3i = 5 − i − ( −8 − 3i ) = 13 + 2i
We can see that results from (b) and (c) are the same as the fact implied they would be.

There is another nice fact that uses conjugates that we should probably take a look at. However,
instead of just giving the fact away let’s derive it. We’ll start with a complex number z= a + bi and
then perform each of the following operations.
z + z =a + bi + ( a − bi ) z − z =a + bi − ( a − bi )
2=
a 2bi
Now, recalling that Re z = a and Im z = b we see that we have,
z+z z−z
= Re z = Im z (6)
2 2i
Modulus
The other operation we want to take a look at in this section is the modulus of a complex number.
Given a complex number z= a + bi the modulus is denoted by z and is defined by

=
z a 2 + b2 (7)

Notice that the modulus of a complex number is always a real number and in fact it will never be
negative since square roots always return a positive number or zero depending on what is under the
radical.

Notice that if z is a real number (i.e. z= a + 0i ) then,

=
z =
a2 a
where the ⋅ on the z is the modulus of the complex number and the ⋅ on the a is the absolute value

of a real number (recall that in general for any real number a we have a 2 = a ). So, from this we can
see that for real numbers the modulus and absolute value are essentially the same thing.

We can get a nice fact about the relationship between the modulus of a complex number and its real
and imaginary parts. To see this let’s square both sides of (7) and use the fact that Re z = a and
Im z = b . Doing this we arrive at
z = a 2 + b 2 = ( Re z ) + ( Im z )
2 2 2

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 10

Since all three of these terms are positive we can drop the Im z part on the left which gives the
following inequality,
z = ( Re z ) + ( Im z ) ≥ ( Re z )
2 2 2 2

If we then square root both sides of this we get,

z ≥ Re z
where the ⋅ on the z is the modulus of the complex number and the ⋅ on the Re z are absolute
value bars. Finally, for any real number a we also know that a ≤ a (absolute value…) and so we get,
z ≥ Re z ≥ Re z (8)

We can use a similar argument to arrive at,

z ≥ Im z ≥ Im z (9)

There is a very nice relationship between the modulus of a complex number and its conjugate. Let’s
start with a complex number z= a + bi and take a look at the following product.
z z =( a + bi )( a − bi ) =a 2 + b 2
From this product we can see that
zz = z
2
(10)
This is a nice and convenient fact on occasion.

Notice as well that in computing the modulus the sign on the real and imaginary part of the complex
number won’t affect the value of the modulus and so we can also see that,
z = z (11)
and
− z =z (12)

We can also now formalize the process for division from the previous section now that we have the
modulus and conjugate notations. In order to get the i out of the denominator of the quotient we really
multiplied the numerator and denominator by the conjugate of the denominator. Then using (10) we
can simplify the notation a little. Doing all this gives the following formula for division,
z1 z1 z2 z1 z2
= = 2
z2 z2 z2 z2

Here’s a quick example illustrating this,

6 + 3i
Example 2 Evaluate .
10 + 8i
Solution
In this case we have z1= 6 + 3i and z=
2 10 + 8i . Then computing the various parts of the formula
gives,
z2 = 10 − 8i z2 = 102 + 82 = 164
2

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 11

The quotient is then,

6 + 3i
=
( 6 + 3i )(10 − 8i=) 60 − 48i + 30i − 24i 2 21 9
= − i
10 + 8i 164 164 41 82

Here are some more nice facts about the modulus of a complex number.

=
If z 0=
then z 0 (13)

z1 z2 = z1 z2 (14)

z1 z
= 1 (15)
z2 z2

Property (13) should make some sense to you. If the modulus is zero then a 2 + b 2 =
0 , but the only
way this can be zero is if both a and b are zero.

To verify (14) consider the following,

z1 z2 = ( z1 z2 )( z1 z2 )
2
using property (10)
= ( z1 z2 )( z1 z2 ) using property (4)
= z1 z1 z2 z2 rearranging terms
= z1 z2
2 2
using property (10) again (twice)

So, from this we can see that

z1 z2 = z1
2 2 2
z2

Finally, recall that we know that the modulus is always positive so take the square root of both sides to
arrive at
z1 z2 = z1 z2

Property (15) can be verified using a similar argument.

Triangle Inequality and Variants

Properties (14) and (15) relate the modulus of a product/quotient of two complex numbers to the
product/quotient of the modulus of the individual numbers. We now need to take a look at a similar
relationship for sums of complex numbers. This relationship is called the triangle inequality and is,
z1 + z2 ≤ z1 + z2 (16)

We’ll also be able to use this to get a relationship for the difference of complex numbers.

The triangle inequality is actually fairly simple to prove so let’s do that. We'll start with the left side
squared and use (10) and (3) to rewrite it a little.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 12

z1 + z2 =
2
( )
( z1 + z2 ) z1 + z2
( z1 + z2 ) z1 + z2 = ( )
Now multiply out the right side to get,
z1 + z2 = z1 z1 + z1 z2 + z2 z1 + z2 z2
2
(17)
Next notice that,
z=
2 z1 z=
2 z1 z2 z1
and so using (6), (8) and (11) we can write middle two terms of the right side of (17) as
z1 z2 + z2 z1 = z1 z2 + z1 z2 = 2 Re ( z1 z2 ) ≤ 2 z1 z2 = 2 z1 z2 = 2 z1 z2

Also use (10) on the first and fourth term in (17) to write them as,
= z=
2 2
z1 z1 1 z2 z2 z2

With the rewrite on the middle two terms we can now write (17) as
z1 + z2 = z1 z1 + z1 z2 + z2 z1 + z2 z2
2

= z1 + z1 z2 + z2 z1 + z2
2 2

≤ z1 + 2 z1 z2 + z2
2 2

(z )
2
= 1 + z2
So, putting all this together gives,
z1 + z2 ≤ ( z1 + z2 )
2 2

Now, recalling that the modulus is always positive we can square root both sides and we’ll arrive at the
triangle inequality.
z1 + z2 ≤ z1 + z2

There are several variations of the triangle inequality that can all be easily derived.

Let’s first start by assuming that z1 ≥ z2 . This is not required for the derivation, but will help to get a
more general version of what we’re going to derive here. So, let’s start with z1 and do some work on
it.
z1 = z1 + z2 − z2
≤ z1 + z2 + − z2 Using triangle inequality
= z1 + z2 + z2

Now, rewrite things a little and we get,

z1 + z2 ≥ z1 − z2 ≥ 0 (18)

If we now assume that z1 ≤ z2 we can go through a similar process as above except this time switch
z1 and z2 and we get,

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 13

− ( z1 − z2 ) ≥ 0
z1 + z2 ≥ z2 − z1 = (19)

Now, recalling the definition of absolute value we can combine (18) and (19) into the following variation
of the triangle inequality.
z1 + z2 ≥ z1 − z2 (20)

Also, if we replace z2 with − z2 in (16) and (20) we arrive at two more variations of the triangle
inequality.
z1 − z2 ≤ z1 + z2 (21)

z1 − z2 ≥ z1 − z2 (22)

On occasion you’ll see (22) called the reverse triangle inequality.

Polar & Exponential Form

Most people are familiar with complex numbers in the form z= a + bi , however there are some
alternate forms that are useful at times. In this section we’ll look at both of those as well as a couple of
nice facts that arise from them.

Geometric Interpretation
Before we get into the alternate forms we should first take a very brief look at a natural geometric
interpretation of complex numbers since this will lead us into our first alternate form.

Consider the complex number z= a + bi . We can think of this complex number as either the point
( a, b ) in the standard Cartesian coordinate system or as the vector that starts at the origin and ends at
the point ( a, b ) . An example of this is shown in the figure below.

In this interpretation we call the x-axis the real axis and the y-axis the imaginary axis. We often call the
xy-plane in this interpretation the complex plane.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 14

Note as well that we can now get a geometric interpretation of the modulus. From the image above, we
can see that=
z a 2 + b 2 is nothing more than the length of the vector that we’re using to represent
the complex number z= a + bi . This interpretation also tells us that the inequality z1 < z2 means
that z1 is closer to the origin (in the complex plane) than z2 is.

Polar Form
Let’s now take a look at the first alternate form for a complex number. If we think of the non-zero
complex number z= a + bi as the point ( a, b ) in the xy-plane we also know that we can represent this
point by the polar coordinates ( r , θ ) , where r is the distance of the point from the origin and θ is the
angle, in radians, from the positive x-axis to the ray connecting the origin to the point.

When working with complex numbers we assume that r is positive and that θ can be any of the possible
(both positive and negative) angles that end at the ray. Note that this means that there are literally an
infinite number of choices for θ .

We excluded z = 0 since θ is not defined for the point (0,0). We will therefore only consider the polar
form of non-zero complex numbers.

We have the following conversion formulas for converting the polar coordinates ( r , θ ) into the
corresponding Cartesian coordinates of the point, ( a, b ) .

= cos θ
a r= b r sin θ

If we substitute these into z= a + bi and factor an r out we arrive at the polar form of the complex
number,
=z r ( cos θ + i sin θ ) (1)

Note as well that we also have the following formula from polar coordinates relating r to a and b.
=r a 2 + b2
but, the right side is nothing more than the definition of the modulus and we see that,
r= z (2)

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 15

So, sometimes the polar form will be written as,

=z z ( cos θ + i sin θ ) (3)

The angle θ is called the argument of z and is denoted by,

θ = arg z
The argument of z can be any of the infinite possible values of θ each of which can be found by solving
b
tan θ = (4)
a
and making sure that θ is in the correct quadrant.

Note as well that any two values of the argument will differ from each other by an integer multiple of
2π . This makes sense when you consider the following.

For a given complex number z pick any of the possible values of the argument, say θ . If you now
increase the value of θ , which is really just increasing the angle that the point makes with the positive x-
axis, you are rotating the point about the origin in a counter-clockwise manner. Since it takes 2π
radians to make one complete revolution you will be back at your initial starting point when you reach
θ + 2π and so have a new value of the argument. See the figure below.

If you keep increasing the angle you will again be back at the starting point when you reach θ + 4π ,
which is again a new value of the argument. Continuing in this fashion we can see that every time we
reach a new value of the argument we will simply be adding multiples of 2π onto the original value of
the argument.

Likewise, if you start at θ and decrease the angle you will be rotating the point about the origin in a
clockwise manner and will return to your original starting point when you reach θ − 2π . Continuing in
this fashion and we can again see that each new value of the argument will be found by subtracting a
multiple of 2π from the original value of the argument.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 16

So, we can see that if θ1 and θ 2 are two values of arg z then for some integer k we will have,
θ1 − θ 2 =
2π k (5)

that z r ( cos θ + i sin θ ) is a parametric representation for a circle

Note that we’ve also shown here=
of radius r centered at the origin and that it will trace out a complete circle in a counter-clockwise
direction as the angle increases from θ to θ + 2π .

The principal value of the argument (sometimes called the principal argument) is the unique value of
the argument that is in the range −π < arg z ≤ π and is denoted by Arg z . Note that the inequalities
at either end of the range tells that a negative real number will have a principal value of the argument of
Arg z = π .

Recalling that we noted above that any two values of the argument will differ from each other by a
multiple of 2π leads us to the following fact.

arg z = Arg z + 2π n n = 0, ±1, ±2, (6)

We should probably do a couple of quick numerical examples at this point before we move on to look
the second alternate form of a complex number.

Example 1 Write down the polar form of each of the following complex numbers.
(a) z =−1 + i 3
(b) z = −9
(c) z = 12 i
Solution
(a) Let’s first get r.
r= z = 1+ 3 = 2
Now let’s find the argument of z. This can be any angle that satisfies (4), but it’s usually easiest to find
the principal value so we’ll find that one. The principal value of the argument will be the value of θ
that is in the range −π < θ ≤ π , satisfies,

tan θ =
3
−1
⇒ (
θ = tan −1 − 3 )
and is in the second quadrant since that is the location the complex number in the complex plane.

If you’re using a calculator to find the value of this inverse tangent make sure that you understand
π π
that your calculator will only return values in the range − <θ < and so you may get the
2 2
incorrect value. Recall that if your calculator returns a value of θ1 then the second value that will also
satisfy the equation will be θ 2= θ1 + π . So, if you’re using a calculator be careful. You will need to
compute both and the determine which falls into the correct quadrant to match the complex number
we have because only one of them will be in the correct quadrant.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 17

In our case the two values are,

π π 2π
θ1 =− θ2 =− +π =
3 3 3
The first one is in quadrant four and the second one is in quadrant two and so is the one that we’re
after. Therefore, the principal value of the argument is,
2π
Arg z =
3
and all possible values of the argument are then
2π
arg z = + 2π n n = 0, ±1, ±2,
3

Now, let’s actually do what we were originally asked to do. Here is the polar form of z =−1 + i 3 .
  2π   2π  
=z 2  cos   + i sin  
  3   3 

Now, for the sake of completeness we should acknowledge that there are many more equally valid
polar forms for this complex number. To get any of the other forms we just need to compute a
different value of the argument by picking n. Here are a couple of other possible polar forms.
  8π   8π  
z=
2  cos   + i sin    n=
1
  3   3 
  16π   16π 
z=
2  cos  −  + i sin  −  n=
−3
  3   3 

(b) In this case we’ve already noted that the principal value of a negative real number is π so we
don’t need to compute that. For completeness sake here are all possible values of the argument of
any negative number.
arg z = π + 2π n = π (1 + 2n ) n = 0, ±1, ±2,

Now, r is,
r= z = 81 + 0 = 9
The polar form (using the principal value) is,
=z 9 ( cos (π ) + i sin (π ) )

Note that if we’d had a positive real number the principal value would be Arg z = 0

(c) This another special case much like real numbers. If we were to use (4) to find the argument we
would run into problems since the real part is zero and this would give division by zero. However, all
we need to do to get the argument is think about where this complex number is in the complex plane.
In the complex plane purely imaginary numbers are either on the positive y-axis or the negative y-axis
depending on the sign of the imaginary part.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 18

For our case the imaginary part is positive and so this complex number will be on the positive y-axis.
Therefore, the principal value and the general argument for this complex number is,
π π 1 
Arg z = arg z = + 2π n = π  + 2n  n = 0, ±1, ±2,
2 2 2 

Also, in this case r = 12 and so the polar form (again using the principal value) is,
 π   π 
=z 12  cos   + i sin   
 2  2 

Exponential Form
Now that we’ve discussed the polar form of a complex number we can introduce the second alternate
form of a complex number. First, we’ll need Euler’s formula,
eiθ cos θ + i sin θ
= (7)

With Euler’s formula we can rewrite the polar form of a complex number into its exponential form as
follows.
z = re i θ
where θ = arg z and so we can see that, much like the polar form, there are an infinite number of
possible exponential forms for a given complex number. Also, because any two arguments for a give
complex number differ by an integer multiple of 2π we will sometimes write the exponential form as,
z = re (
i θ + 2π n )
n = 0, ±1, ±2,
where θ is any value of the argument although it is more often than not the principal value of the
argument.

To get the value of r we can either use (3) to write the exponential form or we can take a more direct
approach. Let’s take the direct approach. Take the modulus of both sides and then do a little
simplification as follows,
z =reiθ =r eiθ =r cos θ + i sin θ = r 2 + 0 cos 2 θ + sin 2 θ =r
and we see that r = z .

=
Note as well that because we can consider z r ( cos θ + i sin θ ) as a parametric representation of a
circle of radius r and the exponential form of a complex number is really another way of writing the
polar form we can also consider z = reiθ a parametric representation of a circle of radius r.

Now that we’ve got the exponential form of a complex number out of the way we can use this along
with basic exponent properties to derive some nice facts about complex numbers and their arguments.

First, let’s start with the non-zero complex number z = reiθ . In the arithmetic section we gave a fairly
complex formula for the multiplicative inverse, however, with the exponential form of the complex
number we can get a much nicer formula for the multiplicative inverse.

( r=
eiθ ) ( )
−1 −1 1 i ( −θ )
z −1
= eiθ
r −1 = −1 − iθ
r= e e
r

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 19

1
Note that since r is a non-zero real number we know that r −1 = . So, putting this together the
r
exponential form of the multiplicative inverse is,
1 i −θ
z −1 = e ( ) (8)
r
and the polar form of the multiplicative inverse is,
z −1
=
1
r
( cos ( −θ ) + i sin ( −θ ) ) (9)

We can also get some nice formulas for the product or quotient of complex numbers. Given two
iθ 1 iθ 2
complex numbers z1 = r1 e and z2 = r2 e , where θ1 is any value of arg z1 and θ 2 is any value of
arg z2 , we have
=z1 z2 (=
r e )( r e )
1
iθ 1
2
iθ 2
r1 r2e
i (θ 1 +θ 2 )
(10)

iθ
z1 r1 e 1 r1 i (θ 1 − θ 2 )
= = e (11)
z2 r2 eiθ 2 r2

The polar forms for both of these are,

(
z1 z2 r1 r2 cos (θ 1 + θ 2 ) + i sin (θ 1 + θ 2 )
= ) (12)

z1 r1
=
z2 r2
(
cos (θ 1 − θ 2 ) + i sin (θ 1 − θ 2 ) ) (13)

We can also use (10) and (11) to get some nice facts about the arguments of a product and a quotient of
complex numbers. Since θ1 is any value of arg z1 and θ 2 is any value of arg z2 we can see that,
arg ( z=
1 z2 ) arg z1 + arg z2 (14)

 z1 
arg =  arg z1 − arg z2 (15)
 z2 

Note that (14) and (15) may or may not work if you use the principal value of the argument, Arg z . For
example, consider z1 = i and z2 = −1 . In this case we have z1 z2 = −i and the principal value of the
argument for each is,
π π
Arg ( i ) = Arg ( −1) =π Arg ( −i ) =−
2 2
However,
3π π
Arg ( i ) + Arg ( −1=
) ≠−
2 2
and so (14) doesn’t hold if we use the principal value of the argument. Note however, if we use,

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 20

π
=arg ( i ) arg ( −1) π
=
2
then,
3π
arg ( i ) + arg ( −1) =
2
3π
is valid since is a possible argument for –i, it just isn’t the principal value of the argument.
2

As an interesting side note, (15) actually does work for this example if we use the principal arguments.
That won’t always happen, but it does in this case so be careful!

We will close this section with a nice fact about the equality of two complex numbers that we will make
heavy use of in the next section. Suppose that we have two complex numbers given by their
iθ 1 iθ 2
exponential forms, z1 = r1 e and z2 = r2 e . Also suppose that we know that z1 = z2 . In this case
we have,
iθ 1 iθ 2
r1 e = r2 e

Then we will have z1 = z2 if and only if,

r1 = r2 and θ 2 = θ1 + 2π k for some integer k ( i.e. k = 0, ±1, ±2,) (16)

Note that the phrase “if and only if” is a fancy mathematical phrase that means that if z1 = z2 is true
then so is (16) and likewise, if (16) is true then we’ll have z1 = z2 .

This may seem like a silly fact, but we are going to use this in the next section to help us find the powers
and roots of complex numbers.

Powers and Roots

In this section we’re going to take a look at a really nice way of quickly computing integer powers and
roots of complex numbers.

We’ll start with integer powers of z = reiθ since they are easy enough. If n is an integer then,
(=
reiθ ) r nei nθ
n
=zn (1)

There really isn’t too much to do with powers other than working a quick example.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 21

Example 1 Compute ( 3 + 3i ) .
5

Solution
Of course, we could just do this by multiplying the number out, but this would be time consuming and
prone to mistakes. Instead we can convert to exponential form and then use (1) to quickly get the
answer.

Here is the exponential form of 3 + 3i .

3 π
r= 9+9 = 3 2 tan θ = ⇒ Arg z =
3 4
π
i
3 + 3i =
3 2e 4

Note that we used the principal value of the argument for the exponential form, although we didn’t
have to.

Now, use (1) to quickly do the computation.

5π
( 3 + 3i ) ( )
5 i
=
5
3 2 e 4

  5π   5π  
= 972 2  cos   + i sin  
  4   4 
 2 2 
= 972 2  − − i
 2 2 
=−972 − 972i

So, there really isn’t too much to integer powers of a complex number.

Note that if r = 1 then we have,

(=
eiθ ) ei nθ
n
=zn
and if we take the last two terms and convert to polar form we arrive at a formula that is called de
Moivre’s formula.
( cos θ + i sin θ ) = cos ( n θ ) + i sin ( n θ ) n = 0, ±1, ±2,
n

We now need to move onto computing roots of complex numbers. We’ll start this off “simple” by
finding the nth roots of unity. The nth roots of unity for n = 2,3, are the distinct solutions to the
equation,
zn = 1

Clearly (hopefully) z = 1 is one of the solutions. We want to determine if there are any other solutions.
To do this we will use the fact from the previous sections that states that z1 = z2 if and only if
r1 = r2 and θ 2 = θ1 + 2π k for some integer k ( i.e. k = 0, ±1, ±2,)

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

 Complex Numbers Primer 22

So, let’s start by converting both sides of the equation to complex form and then computing the power
on the left side. Doing this gives,
( reiθ ) 1e ( ) 1e ( )
r nei nθ =
n
= ⇒
i0 i0

So, according to the fact these will be equal provided,

rn = 1 nθ = 0 + 2π k k = 0, ±1, ±2,

Now, r is a positive integer (by assumption of the exponential/polar form) and so solving gives,
2π k
r= 1 θ= k = 0, ±1, ±2,
n

The solutions to the equation are then,

 2π k 
z = exp  i  k = 0, ±1, ±2,
 n 

Recall from our discussion on the polar form (and hence the exponential form) that these points will lie
on the circle of radius r. So, our points will lie on the unit circle and they will be equally spaced on the
2π
unit circle at every
radians. Note this also tells us that there are n distinct roots corresponding to
n
=k 0,1, 2, , n − 1 since we will get back to where we started once we reach k = n

Therefore, there are n nth roots of unity and they are given by,
 2π k   2π k   2π k 
exp  i =cos   + i sin   k=
0,1, 2, , n − 1 (2)
 n   n   n 

There is a simpler notation that is often used to denote nth roots of unity. First define,
 2π 
ωn = exp  i  (3)
 n 
then the nth roots of unity are,
k
  2π    2π k 
=ωnk  exp =
i   exp  i  =k 0,1, 2, n − 1
  n   n 

Or, more simply the nth roots of unity are,

1, ωn , ωn2 , , ωnn −1 (4)
where ωn is defined in (3).

Example 2 Compute the nth roots of unity for n = 2, 3, and 4.

Solution
We’ll start with n = 2.
 2π  i π
=ω2 exp
= i  e
 2 

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

 Complex Numbers Primer 23

This gives,
=1 1=
and ω2 ei π
= cos (π ) + i sin (π )
= −1

So, for n = 2 we have -1, and 1 as the nth roots of unity. This should not be too surprising as all we
were doing was solving the equation
z2 = 1
and we all know that -1 and 1 are the two solutions.

While the result for n = 2 may not be that surprising that for n = 3 may be somewhat surprising. In
this case we are really solving
z3 = 1
and in the world of real numbers we know that the solution to this is z = 1. However, from the work
above we know that there are 3 nth roots of unity in this case. The problem here is that the remaining
two are complex solutions and so are usually not thought about when solving for real solution to this
equation which is generally what we wanted up to this point.

So, let’s go ahead and find the nth roots of unity for n = 3.
 2π 
ω3 = exp  i 
 3 
This gives,
 2π   4π 
=1 1=ω3 exp  i  =ω32 exp  i 
 3   3 
 2π   2π   4π   4π 
=cos   + i sin   =cos   + i sin  
 3   3   3   3 
1 3 1 3
=− + i =− − i
2 2 2 2
I’ll leave it to you to check that if you cube the last two values you will in fact get 1.

Finally, let’s go through n = 4. We’ll do this one much quicker than the previous cases.
 2π   π
=ω4 exp
= i  exp  i 
 4   2
This gives,
 π  3π 
=1 1=ω4 exp  i =
 ω42 exp ( i π
= ) ω43 exp  i 
 2  2 
=i =−1 =−i

Now, let’s move on to more general roots. First let’s get some notation out of the way. We’ll define
z10 n to be any number that will satisfy the equation
z n = z0 (5)

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 24

To find the values of z10 n we’ll need to solve this equation and we can do that in the same way that we
found the nth roots of unity. So, if r0 = z0 and θ 0 = arg z0 (note θ 0 can be any value of the argument,
but we usually use the principal value) we have,
( reiθ ) = r0 ei θ0 r nei nθ = r0 ei θ0
n
⇒
So, this tells us that,
θ0 2π k
r= n r0 θ= + k = 0, ±1, ±2,
n n
The distinct solutions to (5) are then,
  θ 2π k  
ak =n r0 exp  i  0 +  k =0,1, 2, , n − 1 (6)
 n n 
So, we can see that just as there were n nth roots of unity there are also n nth roots of z0 .

Finally, we can again simplify the notation up a little. If a is any of the nth roots of z0 then all the roots
can be written as,
a, aωn , aωn2 , ,, aωnn −1
where ωn is defined in (3).

Example 3 Compute all values of the following.

1
(a) ( 2i ) 2

( )
1

(b) 3−i 3

Solution
(a) The first thing to do is write down the exponential form of the complex number we’re taking the
root of.
 π
2i = 2 exp  i 
 2
π
So, if we use θ 0 = we can use (6) to write down the roots.
2
 π 
ak = 2 exp  i  + π k   k = 0,1
 4 
Plugging in for k gives,
 π   5π  
a0 =
2 exp  i  a1 2 exp  i  
 4   4 
 π   π    5π   5π  
= 2  cos   + i sin    = 2  cos   + i sin  
 4  4    4   4 
=1 + i =− 1 − i

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu

Complex Numbers Primer 25

I’ll leave it to you to check that if you square both of these will get 2i.

(b) Here’s the exponential form of the number,

  π 
=
3 − i 2 exp  i  −  
  6 
Using (6) the roots are,
  π 2π k  
= 3
2 exp  i  − + =
 k 0,1, 2
3  
ak
  18
Plugging in for k gives,
  π    π   π 
a0= 2 exp  i  −  = 3 2  cos  −  + i sin  −  = 1.24078 − 0.21878 i
3

  18     18   18  
 11π  3   11π   11π  
a1 =
3
2 exp  i = 2  cos   + i sin   =−0.43092 + 1.18394 i
 18    18   18  
 23π    23π   23π 
=a2 3
=
2 exp  i 
3
2  cos   + i sin   =
−0.80986 − 0.96516 i
 18    18   18 
As with the previous part I’ll leave it to you to check that if you cube each of these you will get 3 −i
.

© 2018 Paul Dawkins http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu