It's quite clear when spelled out (which that article does quite well), but nobody ever pointed it out to me before, and it's not like it's something I'd trip across myself one morning whilst making pancakes and contemplating the radii of strawberries.
I do have memories of my fellow high school Algebra students' spikes coming out to protest the existence of i, but that's a useful (and unavoidable) mathematical tool.
I also did not know that and never had it pointed out. That's pretty neat though. And the simple proof explanations (well those that I understood--like fractions and algebraic) do seem quite clear.
That equality is one of my favourite pointless maths things! I've even had arguments with people about it. The fervour with which people will disagree, despite all evidence, is staggering.
It's quite counterintuitive on its face! The article also covers many students' understandably mutinous reactions to first learning it; one researcher has deeply studied this specific phenomenon.
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An interesting, if mostly useless fact. Still, I think I can win bar bets with this oddity.
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