Exercises

Real/Complex Context

Allow student responses to be complex valued

Context

By default the MathMatize math engine simplifies and evaluates math expressions over the reals (ℝ) Conventions and Assumptions. When entering blank answers (for math/numeric blanks), a professor may want to evaluate the student responses over the complex plane (ℂ) instead of over the reals (ℝ). In order to force the complex context the expression should explicitly introduce the unit imaginary in the answer. For example, the expression (-9)^(1/2) will generally yield NaN (Not a Number), however, if the answer is 3i, then the response (-9)^(1/2) will be evaluated in the complex context. Similarly, while the expression ln(-1) will generally yield NaN, however, if the answer is i\pi then the ln(-1) will be evaluated in the complex context.