Complex conjugate: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 09:55, 4 December 2007

The complex conjugate of a complex number $z = a + bi$ is the complex number $\overline{z} = a - bi$ .

Geometrically, if $z$ is a point in the complex plane, $\overline z$ is the reflection of $z$ across the real axis.

Conjugation is its own functional inverse and commutes with the usual operations on complex numbers:

It also interacts in simple ways with other operations on $\mathbb{C}$ :

$|\overline{z}| = |z|$
$\overline{z}\cdot z = |z|^2$
If $z = r\cdot e^{it}$ for $r, t \in \mathbb{R}$ , $\overline z = r\cdot e^{-it}$ . That is, $\overline z$ is the complex number of same absolute value but opposite argument of $z$ .
$z + \overline z = 2 \mathrm{Re}(z)$ where $\mathrm{Re}(z)$ is the real part of $z$ .
$z - \overline{z} = 2i \mathrm{Im}(z)$ where $\mathrm{Im}(z)$ is the imaginary part of $z$ .

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			[[Category:Number Theory]]