TABLE OF CONTENTS The topics discussed in this chapter are not entirely new to students taking this course. You have already studied many of these topics in earlier courses or are expected to know them from your previous training. Even so, this background material deserves a review because it is so pervasive in the area of signals and systems. Investing a little time in such a review will pay big dividends later. Furthermore, this material is useful not only for this course but also for several courses that follow. It will also be helpful later, as reference material in your professional career.
Complex numbers are an extension of ordinary numbers and are an integral part of the modern number system. Complex numbers, particularly imaginary numbers, sometimes seem mysterious and unreal. This feeling of unreality derives from their unfamiliarity and novelty rather than their supposed nonexistence! Mathematicians blundered in calling these numbers "imaginary," for the term immediately prejudices perception. Had these numbers been called by some other name, they would have become demystified long ago, just as irrational numbers or negative numbers were. Many futile attempts have been made to ascribe some physical meaning to imaginary numbers. However, this effort is needless. In mathematics we assign symbols and operations any meaning we wish as long as internal consistency is maintained. The history of mathematics is full of entities that were unfamiliar and held in abhorrence until familiarity made them acceptable. This fact will become clear from the following historical...
