real part

Definition of real part

: the term in a complex number (such as 2 in 2 + 3i) that does not contain the imaginary unit as a factor

Examples of real part in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web For me and my daughters, unicorns are a very real part of our world. — Megan Gambino, Smithsonian, "The Ten Best Children’s Books of 2019," 7 Dec. 2019 However, Riemann knew that his formula would be valid only if the zeros of the zeta function satisfied a certain property: Their real parts all had to equal ½. — Quanta Magazine, "Physicists Attack Math’s $1,000,000 Question," 4 Apr. 2017 Complex numbers are made up of a real part and an imaginary part. — Quanta Magazine, "The (Imaginary) Numbers at the Edge of Reality," 25 Oct. 2018 The scene from a comic-book movie was a real part of the show. — Mike Murphy, Quartz, "We were promised jetpacks, and now we have them. So why isn’t anyone using them?," 18 July 2019 And just like that, the moon — much more than a featureless symbolic orb — was a real part of our collective memory and history. — Shannon Stirone, New York Times, "Imagining the Moon," 9 July 2019 Since energy levels are always real, the real parts of the zeros of the zeta function would always be ½, and the Riemann hypothesis would therefore be true. — Quanta Magazine, "Physicists Attack Math’s $1,000,000 Question," 4 Apr. 2017 In this solution, known as the Argand (or complex) plane, the location of every point is the sum of a real part for its horizontal distance and an imaginary part for its vertical distance from the origin. — Quanta Magazine, "How to Find Simple Treasures in Complex Numbers," 14 Feb. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'real part.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Last Updated

22 Dec 2019

Cite this Entry

“Real part.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/real%20part. Accessed 20 January 2020.

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