Complex Variables for Strategy: From Bombelli's Imaginary Number, Steinmetz’s Phasor Domain to Sunzi's Art of War R. Iembo Faculty of Engineering University of Calabria Cosenza, Italy
[email protected] Chong Ming Lin Chang Chun University, China Sunnyvale, California, 94087, USA
[email protected] ABSTRACT Bombelli’s contribution to math, especially his understanding about real numbers can result from the Rafael Bombelli was born in Bologna,Italy, on 1526. operations of complex numbers, led to the breakthrough He was trained and worked as an engineer-architect until in calculation of alternating current and voltage with R, C died on 1573 without much recognition until hundred & L (Resistance, Capacitance & Inductance ) as the three years later by the math society as a great Italian variables to represent the operation of any electrical mathematician, and there is a lunar crater named devices or power lines. Looking back at the development Bombelli for his contributions to imaginary and complex of modern societies supported by high-tech electronic numbers . devices and energies supplied from alternating current based powerlines, we should even give higher praise to Bombelli is the author of a treatise on algebra and is a Bombelli’s finding and development of imaginary central figure in the understanding of imaginary numbers and operation of complex variables in the first numbers. His mathematical achievement was never place. fully appreciated during his life time, but his failure to repair the Ponte Santa Maria 1561 attempt, a bridge