In the begin of this series on basic and elementary calculations you can do with 4D complex numbers we already found what the number tau is. We used stuff like the pull back map… But you can do it also with the method from the previous post about how to find the matrix representation for any 4D complex number Z given the eigenvalues.

Finding the correct eigenvalues for tau is rather subtle, you must respect the behavior of the logarithm function in higher dimensions. It is not as easy as on the real line where you simply have log ab = log a + log b for positive reals a and b.

But let me keep this post short and stop all the blah blah.

Just two nice pictures is all to do the calculation of the 4D complex number tau:

(Oops, two days later I repaired a silly typo where I did forget one minus sign. It was just a dumb typo that likely did not lead to much confusion. So I will not take it in the ‘Corrections’ categorie on this website that I use for more or less more significant repairs…)

Ok, that was it.