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2: Complex Numbers

  • Page ID
    1384
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    To successfully analyze AC circuits, we need to work with mathematical objects and techniques capable of representing these multi-dimensional quantities. Here is where we need to abandon scalar numbers for something better suited: complex numbers. Just like the example of giving directions from one city to another, AC quantities in a single-frequency circuit have both amplitude (analogy: distance) and phase shift (analogy: direction). A complex number is a single mathematical quantity able to express these two dimensions of amplitude and phase shift at once.

    • 2.1: Introduction to Complex Numbers
      When analyzing alternating current circuits, we find that quantities of voltage, current, and even resistance (called impedance in AC) are not the familiar one-dimensional quantities we’re used to measuring in DC circuits. Rather, these quantities, because they’re dynamic (alternating in direction and amplitude), possess other dimensions that must be taken into account. Frequency and phase shift are two of these dimensions that come into play.
    • 2.2: Vectors and AC Waveforms
      When used to describe an AC quantity, the length of a vector represents the amplitude of the wave while the angle of a vector represents the phase angle of the wave relative to some other (reference) waveform.
    • 2.3: Simple Vector Addition
      Remember that vectors are mathematical objects just like numbers on a number line: they can be added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided. Addition is perhaps the easiest vector operation to visualize, so we’ll begin with that. If vectors with common angles are added, their magnitudes (lengths) add up just like regular scalar quantities.
    • 2.4: Complex Vector Addition
      If vectors with uncommon angles are added, their magnitudes (lengths) add up quite differently than that of scalar magnitudes.
    • 2.5: Polar Form and Rectangular Form Notation for Complex Numbers
    • 2.6: Complex Number Arithmetic
    • 2.7: More on AC “polarity”
    • 2.8: Some Examples with AC Circuits


    This page titled 2: Complex Numbers is shared under a GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Tony R. Kuphaldt (All About Circuits) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.