system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are imaginary numbers strictly necessary?

I'm an electrical engineer doing "MRI stuff" - I deal with imaginary numbers every day, from computing complex impedances in circuit analysis to modelling of time-varying signals. Recently, I was watching a popsci documentary (of which naturally any statements should be taken with a grain of salt) and the narrator made a comment along the lines of, "imaginary numbers are not absolutely necessary, but they make a lot of mathematics much simpler". This just didn't sound right to me, and I've been mulling it over ever since. Is there any validity to this statement? In my gut I feel sqrt(-1) is just such a fundamental concept that there's no way to work around it, so to speak.
gpt
It is true. You can define any physical system without imaginary numbers. There is even an entire formulation of quantum mechanics without using them. Anything that is done with imaginary numbers can be re-formulated with phase angles, it would just be a lot tougher.