The art of not being one with the universe

C++ books (learn it-books, not big library references) usually don’t cover complex numbers. Understandable because I expect you don’t really need them when you write a word processor, but also very annoying, since I, a student of the glorious natural sciences, do need them, and generally prefer to use them even if I don’t have to.

Take the Mandelbrot set, which I’ve discussed earlier. So simple in complex notation. So clumsy in real notation.

Z₀ = 0
Z_n+1 = Z_n² + c

The Mandelbrot set is the set of those points c in the complex plane where Z_∞ does not tend towards infinity.

So simple and natural in Python and Matlab. But there is hope. More typing, of course, than in that sensible language, but there are, indeed, complex numbers in C++.