Visualizing Complex Numbers

This sequence of activities introduces students to a kinesthetic way of representing complex-valued numbers and vectors. Students use their left arm as an Argand diagram to represent various complex numbers and coefficients of spin-1/2 systems. The sequence begins with individual students representing complex numbers and builds to pairs of students, representing the two-component complex-valued vectors of spin-1/2 systems. These activities provide students with a concrete way of visualizing both real and complex transformations, of distinguishing between a relative phase and an overall phase, and of grasping the differing time dependencies of the components of a superposition state.

Activities