Lectures on Complex Analysis

M. Pollicott
13 September 2024

Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 A little history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Some useful reference books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 A few basic ideas 5

2.1 A little algebra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

1 Introduction
Complex analysis is one of the classical branches in mathematics with roots in
the 19th century and just prior. Complex analysis, in particular the theory of
conformal mappings, has many physical applications and is also used throughout
analytic number theory. In modern times, it has become very popular through a
new boost from complex dynamics and the pictures of fractals produced by iterating
holomorphic functions. Another important application of complex analysis is in
string theory which studies conformal invariants in quantum field theory.
1.1 A little history We begin by describing the evolution of the subject.

Figure 1: Khwarizmi, Cardano, Descartes, de Moivre, Euler

The study complex numbers arose from try to find solutions to polynomial
equations. Al-Khwarizmi (780-850) in his book Algebra (Al-Jabr) had solutions to
quadratic equations of various types. 1 He was appointed as the astronomer and
head of the House of Wisdom by Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun (reigned 813-833) in
Baghdad, the contemporary capital city of the Abbasid Caliphate.
The first to solve the polynomial equation x3 + px = q was Scipione del Ferro
(1465-1526). On his deathbed, del Ferro confided the formula to his pupil An-
tonio Maria Fiore, who subsequently challenged another mathematician Nicola
1 Al-Jabr was translated into Latin by the English scholar Robert of Chester in 1145, was used

until the 16th century as the principal mathematical textbook of many European universities.

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“Tartaglia” Fontana (1500-1557) to a mathematical contest on solving cubics. 2
The night before the contest, Tartaglia rediscovered the formula and won the con-
test. Tartaglia in turn told the formula (but not the proof) to an influential math-
ematician Gerolamo Cardano (1501-1576), provided he signed an oath to secrecy.
However, from a knowledge of the formula, Cardano was able to reconstruct the
proof. Later, Cardano learned that del Ferro, not Tartaglia, had originally solved
the problem and then, feeling under no further obligation towards Tartaglia, pro-
Ars Magna (1545). 3 Cardano was also the first
ceeded to publish the result in his √
to introduce complex numbers a + b into algebra, but had misgivings about it. In
the Ars magna he observed, for example, that the problem √ of finding two√numbers
that add to 10 and multiply to 40 was satisfied by 5 + −15 and 5 − −15 but
regarded the solution as both absurd and useless. 4
Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the mathematician and philospher coined the term
imaginary: “For any equation one can imagine as many roots [as its degree would
suggest], but in many cases no quantity exists which corresponds to what one imag-
ines.” 5
Abraham de Moivre (1667-1754), a protestant, left France to seek religious refuge
in London at eighteen years of age. There he befriended Isaac Newton. 6 In 1698 he
mentions that Newton knew, as early as 1676 of an equivalent expression to what
is today known as de Moivre’s theorem (and is probably one of the best known
formulae) which states that:

(cos(θ) + i sin(θ))n = cos(nθ) + i sin(nθ)

where n is an integer. 7 √
Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) introduced the notation i = −1 in his book Intro-
ductio in analysin infinitorum in 1748, and visualized complex numbers as points
with rectangular coordinates, but did not give a satisfactory foundation for complex
numbers. In contrast, there are indications that Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855).
had been in possession of the geometric representation of complex numbers since
1796, but it went unpublished until 1831, when he submitted his ideas to the Royal
Society of Gottingen. It was Gauss who introduced the term complex number.

Figure 2: Gauss, Lagransge, Cauchy, Riemann, Weierstrass

2 The name Tartaglia means “stammerer” a symptom of injuries acquired aged 12 during the

french attack on his home town of Bresca

3 Being multi-talented, he also invented the combination lock. Hoiwever, he was frequently

short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player.
4 Cardano was also said to have correctly predicted the exact date of his own death (but it has

also been claimed that he achieved this by committing suicide!).

5 Descartes was invited by Queen Christina of Sweden to Stockholm to give her lessons. However,

after several meetings at 5am in her draughy castle he contracted pneumonia and died.
6 According to a possibly apocryphal story, Newton, in the later years of his life, used to refer

people posing mathematical questions to him to de Moivre, saying, ”He knows all these things
better than I do.”
7 De Moivre, like Cardan, is famed for predicting the day of his own death (27 November

1754). He found that he was sleeping 15 minutes longer each night and summing the arithmetic
progression, calculated that he would die on the day that he slept for 24 hours.

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 Joseph-Louis Lagrange (1736-1813) showed that a function is analytic if it has a
power-series expansion However, it is Augustin-Louis Cauchy (1789-1857) who re-
ally initiated the modern theory of complex functions in an 1814 memoir submitted
to the French Academie des Sciences. Although the term analytic function was not
mentioned in his memoir, the concept is present there. The memoir was eventually
published in 1825. In particular, contour integrals appear in this memoir (although
Poisson had written a 1820 paper with a path not on the real line). Cauchy also
gave proofs of the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra (1799, 1815) which, as we will
see, has an analytic proof . In summary, Cauchy, gave the foundation for most of
the modern ideas in the field, including:
1. integration along paths and contours (1814);

2. calculus of residues (1826);

3. integration formulae (1831);
4. Power series expansions (1831); and
5. applications to evaluation of definite integrals of real functions

The Cauchy- Riemann equations (actually dating back to d’Alembert 1752, then
Euler 1757, d’Alembert 1761, Euler 1775, Lagrange 1781) are also usually attributed
to Cauchy 1814-1831 and Riemann 1851.
Cauchy resigned from his academic positions in France in 1830 rather than to
swear an oath of allegence to the new government. However, he felt able to resume
his career in France in 1848, when the oath was finally abolshed.
Regarding subsequent work, Karl Weierstrauss (1815-1897) formulated analyt-
icity in terms of existence of a complex derivative, which is the perspective taken
in most textbooks, and Georg Riemann (1826-1866) made fundamental use of the
notion of conformality (previously studied by Euler and Gauss). Later contribu-
tions were made by Poincaré to conformal maps and Teichmüller to quasi-conformal
maps.
One of the most famous complex functions is the Riemann zeta function
∞
X 1
ζ(z) = z
.
n=1
n

This function plays an important role in analytic number theory and the proof of
the prime number theorem by Hadamard in 1896. Almost a century later there
was an even shorter proof (using complex analysis) by Newman. In 1959 Riemann
conjectured that the zeros of ζ(s) are only {−2n : n ∈ N} or have real part equal
to 21 . This remains one of the major unsolved problems in mathematics.
1.2 Notation We denote by C the complex numbers. If z√∈ C then we can write
z = x + iy where x, y ∈ R. In particular, we represent i = −1 and then i2 = −1.
This notation was used by Euler in 1777.
We denote the real and imaginary
p parts by x = Re(z) and y = Im(z). We then
write the absolute value as |z| = x2 + y 2 .
Exercise 1.1. A few useful inequalities include: For z1 .z2 ∈ C:

1. |z1 + z2 | ≤ |z1 | + |z2 |, ie, the triangle inequality.‘

2. |z1 z2 | ≤ |z1 | × |z2 |
3. ||z1 | − |z2 || ≤ |z1 − z2 |

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 z = x + iy

Figure 3: Radial coordinates

On occasions it is convenient to use the identification of C with R2 to illustrate

complex numbers. In particular, we can indentify z = x + iy with ( xy ).
Occasionally it is useful to write complex numbers in radial coordinates,
p i.e.,
z = reiθ where r > 0 and 0 ≤ θ < 2π. In particular, if z = x+iy then r = x2 + y 2
and (provided z ̸= 0) θ = arg(z) = tan−1 (y/x) ∈ (−π, π]. Then x = r cos θ and
y = sin θ.
The function arg(z) is not continuous on the negative real axis

{z = x + iy : y ≤ 0}

The function is continuous when restricted to the cut plane

C − {z = x + iy : y ≤ 0}.

We denote by z = x − iy = re−iθ the complex conjugate.

We have the following identities for z = x + iy.

1. z1 + z2 = z1 + z2
2. z1 z2 = z1 z2
3. x = Re(z) = 21 (z + z̄)
1
4. y = Im(z) = 2i (z − z̄)

5. |z|2 = z z̄
6. z̄ ∈ R iff z = z̄
If z, w ∈ C then we write

[z, w] = {αz + (1 − α)w : 0 ≤ α ≤ 1}

for the line segment joining them.

Exercise 1.2. Show that the map ϕ : C → M2 (R) (= 2 × 2 real matrices)
 
x y
ϕ : x + iy 7→ .
−y x

is a monomorphism.

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1.3 Some useful reference books

1. R. Churchill and J. Brown, Complex Variables and Applications (ISBN 0-07-

010905-2). This is a fairly readable account including much of the material in
the course.
2. I. Stewart and D. Tall, Complex Analysis (ISBN 0-52-128763-4). This is a
popular and accessible book.

3. L. Alhfors, Complex Analysis: an Introduction to the Theory of Analytic

Functions of One Complex Variable (ISBN 0-07-000657-1). This is a classic
textbook, which contains much more material than included in the course and
the treatment is fairly advanced.

4. S. Krantz and R. Greene, Function Theory of One Complex Variable (ISBN

0-82-183962-4). This is a nice textbook, which contains much more material
than included in the course.
5. S. Krantz, Complex Analysis: The Geometric Viewpoint (0-88-385035-4). The
first chapter gives a nice summary of some of the ideas in the course. The
rest of the book is very interesting, but too geometric for this course.