Question

1.Felix exclaims that his quadratic with a discriminant of −1 has no real solutions. Felix then puts down his pencil and refuses to do any more work. Create an equation with a negative discriminant. Then explain to Felix, in calm and complete sentences, how to find the solutions, even though they are not real.

Answer 1

can you discern what this question wants if the student hasn't learned about complex numbers?

Answer 2

@FibonacciChick666: You have a point there. Well, you can tell the student (Felix) to assign an alphabet to the square root of a negative unit number (i.e. sqrt(-1) = a, for instance) then use surds and algebra to solve the problem. Of course, his final answer will be in terms of a, not i. But you can then explain to him that in fact, we do use an algebraic notation (i) to represent the square root of -1, which is a complex number.

Answer 3

Alright, thanks. I was gettign annoyeed by it, but I guess they just want us to derive immaginary numbers...