Argand was a man with an unknown background, a nonmathematical occupation, and an uncertain contact with the literature of his time who intuitively developed a critical idea for which the time was right. He exploited it himself. The quality and significance of his work were recognised by some of the geniuses of his time, but breakdowns in communication and the approximate simultaneity of similar developments by other workers force a historian to deny him full credit for the fruits of the concept on which he laboured......
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Re and Im are mnemonics for Real and Imaginary. Neither is less real or more imaginary than the other. In the complex plane the axes also are referred to as real and imaginary, although both are real enough to the extent that the only way to distinguish between the two is by means of orientation.....
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