SCMP Summer 2009

The Complex Number System

Goal of the lesson: Students will use questioning strategies to determine the secret number that is placed on their back. After determining their number the students will use a graphic organizer to see the relationship of the various numbers in the complex number system by placing their number correctly in the system. They will gain an understanding of the definition of each type of number.

Materials needed: Classroom size graphic organizer and post-it notes labeled with various numbers in the system. (counting numbers, whole numbers, integers, rational numbers, irrational numbers and imaginary numbers) The irrational and non-real numbers are optional, depending on the grade level. This activity should be used after students have been working with fractions/decimals and negative numbers.

Engage: Discuss the history and organization of the number system.

The number system evolved over time by expanding the notion of what we mean by the word “number”. At first, “number” meant something you could count, like how many sheep a farmer owns. These are called the NATURAL NUMBERS, or sometimes the COUNTING NUMBERS.

In the 9th century A.D., the idea of “zero” came to be considered as a number. If the farmer sold all his sheep, then the number of sheep that the farmer owns is zero. We call the set of natural numbers plus the number zero the WHOLE NUMBERS.

Even more abstract than zero was the idea of negative numbers. How can a farmer own negative 3 sheep? As recently as the 1500s there were European mathematicians who argued against the “existence” of negative numbers by saying that “Zero signified ‘nothing’, and it's impossible for anything to be less than nothing”. However, with the idea of debt came the need to find a suitable representation. Though it took longer for the idea to be accepted, they eventually came to be seen as something we could call “negative numbers”. The expanded set of numbers that we get by including negative versions of the counting numbers is called the INTEGERS.

Another generalization that was made, included the idea of fractions. The Hindus are believed to be the first group to indicate fractions with numbers rather than words, 628 B.C. While it is unlikely that a farmer owns a fractional number of sheep, many other things in real life are measured in fractions, like one can eat a fractional part of a lamb. If we add fractions to the set of integers, we get the set of RATIONAL NUMBERS. A rational number is defined as any number that can be written in the form of a/b, where a and b are integers and b is not zero. A few examples of rational numbers are:

Now it might seem as though the set of rational numbers would cover every possible case, but that is not so. There are numbers that cannot be expressed as a fraction, and these numbers are called IRRATIONAL NUMBERS because they cannot be expressed as a ratio of integers. A few examples of irrational numbers are:

When we put the irrational numbers together with the rational numbers, we finally have the complete set of REAL NUMBERS. Any number that represents an amount of something, such as a weight, a volume, or the distance between two points, will always be a real number.

The IMAGINARY NUMBERS were defined in 1572 by Rafael Bombelli, but not widely accepted until the 1800’s. The imaginary number is defined as the square root of -1 and is represented by i.

The NON-REAL NUMBERS contain the PURE imaginary numbers and numbers that have both an imaginary part and a real part.

A few examples of PURE ImaginaryA few examples of Non-Real Numbers

For most human tasks, real numbers offer an adequate description of data. Fractions are meaningless to a person counting sheep, but essential to the person dividing up the meat. Negative numbers are meaningless when measuring weight, but essential when keeping track of monetary debits and credits. Similarly, imaginary numbers have essential concrete applications in a variety of sciences, such as quantum mechanics, relativity, and fluid dynamics to name a few.

Explore: Put numbers from all categories of the number system on individual post-it notes and place on the backs of the students. Each student should get one post-it note with one number written on it. The students should not be told their secret number. The students are to ask yes or no questions of their peers until they are able to determine what their number is and then they are to place it in the proper location on the class graphic organizer of the number system.

Explain: Students will need to justify the placement of their number.

Extend: Ask students to come up with at least 3 new numbers that would fit in each section of the graphic organizer. (Note: There is ONLY ONE number that can be placed in the whole number section of the graphic organizer, the infamous zero.)

Evaluate: Use questioning to ensure that each student understands the number system.

Possible Numbers to be used:

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