Teaching complex numbers with Mathematica

[Kathy_Bautista]

Those of you who are teaching complex numbers may be interested in the following Wolfram Blog post by Ed Pegg:
http://blog.wolfram.com/2010/08/06/nine ... lex-plane/

Pick some points at random. What can be said about them? What curves go through them? What polygons and polynomials can be made from them? Deep mathematics lurks behind these questions, but the answers can be explored just by moving points around within some Wolfram Demonstrations.

Simply by moving points you can see deep mathematics in action.

The blog includes links to nine Wolfram Demonstrations that allow easy experimentation on the complex plane by seeing the effects of moving a point.

• "Five Points Determine a Conic Section" (Ed Pegg Jr and Paul Abbott)
• "Nine-Point Cubic" (Ed Pegg Jr)
• "Factoring Gaussian Integers" (Izidor Hafner)
• "Powers of Complex Points" (Ed Pegg Jr)
• "Complex Newton Map" (Ed Pegg Jr)
• "Complex Polynomials" (Ed Pegg Jr)
• "Lucas–Gauss Theorem" (Bruce Torrence)
• "Marden’s Theorem" (Bruce Torrence)
• "Sendov’s Conjecture" (Bruce Torrence)

Have any of you used these Demonstrations in your classes? Are there any other Demonstrations that you have found useful for exploring complex numbers in the classroom?

-Kathy