Unavoidable I had to write some post after the video on the quaternion from Hamilton. Now my 4D complex numbers commute so they are very different from the standard version of quaternions. Just like in the complex plane the multiplication is ruled by the imaginary unit i that has the defining property of i^2 = -1. On the space of four dimensional complex number I mostly write l for the first imaginary component, the defining property is of course that now the fourth power equals minus one: l^4 = -1.
In 2018 I wrote about 20 introdutionary posts about the 4D complex numbers. That is much more as you would need for the quaternions of Hamilton but on the quaternions you can’t do complex analysis and that explains almost all of the difference.
You can view the quaternions as three complex planes fused together by the common use of the real line. My 4D complex numbers can be viewed as a merge of two complex planes in the sense that there are two planes clearly ‘the same’ as a complex plane.
This post is once more one of the ‘Speed = the Square’ equations and just as on the other spaces we looked at we choose the initial condition such that it is the first imaginary unit l. As such our solution is easily found to be f(t) = l / (1 – lt) because if you differentiate that you get the square. So from the mathematical point of view this is all rather shallow math because all we have to do is find the four coordinate functions of our solution f(t). For that you need to calculate the inverse of 1 – lt and to be honest after so much years I think almost all math professors are just to fucking stupid to find the inverse of any non real 4D compex number Z let alone if you have something with a variable t in it like in 1/(1 – lt).

I did my best to write this as transparant as possible while also keeping it as short as possible. For an indepth look at how to find the inverse of a 4D complex number, look for Part 17 in the intro series to the 4D complex numbers. (Just use the search function for this website for that.)

This post is just three pictures long so lets hope that is inside your avarage attention span. And it’s math so without doubt a lot of people will digest this with a speed of one picture a week! No I am not being sarcastic or so, I just like as how I evolved to the math place I am now. Often that also goes very slow but it has to be remarked the math professors are much more slow slow slow because they could not find the 3D complex numbers in all of human history.
Let’s dive into the picture stuff:

One of the funny things of the math of this post is that on the one hand it is very simple: You only need high school math like the quotient rule for checking my claims are true and differentiation mimics the multiplication on the 4D complex numbers. On the other hand you have those math professors likely not capable of finding these easy coordinate functions for themselves.
But this post is not meant as an anti math professor rant but more upon the beauty of simple math you can do on say the space of 4D complex numbers.
See you in the next post.