Complex plane

The Gaussian number plane (or short Gaußebene ) represents a geometric interpretation of the set of complex numbers, which was introduced by Carl Friedrich Gauss around 1811 ( he mentions the representation explicitly in a letter to Friedrich Bessel of 18 December 1811). A similar approach was earlier (1806 ) by Jean -Robert Argand ( 1768-1822 ) used so that the term Arganddiagramm is also common. An even older description comes from Caspar Wessel ( 1745-1818 ). Wessels posts from 1797 (published in 1799 in the Proceedings of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences), however, were only a hundred years later, more widely known.

Gaußebene in a Cartesian coordinate system is often introduced, wherein plotted as abscissa is the real part and the ordinate is the imaginary part of a complex number.