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I'm not trying to argue for R being more a set than C.

In my head a one dimensional thing like R is fundamentally different from a multidimensional thing like C.




Well I was answering the question about why is C considered numbers - it's a field, hence elements of C behave exactly like numbers. Moreover, it's an 'algebraic closure' of R, hence a more natural choice for "all numbers", and it's a maximal one at that (i.e. quaternions and such are no longer fields and don't really behave like numbers, while C still does).

Edit: FWIW, I consider the terminology of 'real' vs 'imaginary' completely stupid and misleading. This terminology didn't really make it to other languages, e.g. in Russian it's 'material' vs 'complex' numbers, but they don't use the term 'imaginary'.


We do: вещественная часть и мнимая часть.


Oh yeah, forgot about that. Well, then Russian terms are as stupid.




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