How is $ai^{bi}$ a real number

complex numbersexponentiationnumber theoryreal numbers

$ai^{bi}$ 1 immediately appears as an imaginary number: How could an imaginary to the power of yet another imaginary not result in an imaginary?

But, for example, $3i^{2i}≈0.12964$ (truncated).

How is it possible that an imaginary to the power of an imaginary is a real number?

Notes:
1: $a$ and $b$ have the domain $\{0∉ℝ\}$ 2
2: Did I format the domain correctly? I've never used set theory before.

Best Answer

The number $i^{i}$ is real, which immediately implies the result you're interested in. "Proof" : the complex conjugate of a complex number is obtained by replacing every occurrence of $i$ with $-i$; so the complex conjugate of $i^{i}$ is $(-i)^{-i}=(-1/i)^{i}=i^{i}$; but the only way that complex conjugation can give back the same number is if the number is actually real.

Addendum: strictly speaking, raising imaginary numbers to imaginary powers is not well-defined. Consider the following. We have $i=e^{i\pi/2}=e^{5i\pi/2}.$ Hence $i^{i}=e^{-\pi/2}=e^{-5\pi/2},$ but these two real numbers are clearly different. This is a delicate issue, in that resolving this contradiction requires choosing a "branch" of the complex logarithm.

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