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That's mainly because you'll need to use it quite often when solving second order ODEs but can sort of get away without using it in complex numbers.On second read, you're right. I thought I had seen it there, though I couldn't find it in the complex numbers section, so I thought it wasn't there.
That does seem slightly confusing though, rather than teaching it in the context of complex numbers.
A simple example:
d²y/dt² + 4y = 0
Upon testing y = Pekt for some general constant P, the equation reduces to
k² + 4 = 0
which has solutions k = - 2i, 2i
Thus the general solution by principle of superposition (don't worry about why it looks like this if you haven't covered it before) is:
y = Ae2it + Be-2it
= A (cos 2t + isin 2t) + B (cos 2t - isin 2t)
= (A + B) cos 2t + i(A - B) sin 2t
= C cos 2t + D sin 2t
(since C and D are just arbitary constants)
Note that it is possible to to write C cos 2t + D sin 2t in the form R cos (nt + α) which means that the solutions are oscillatory which makes sense because you should recognise that the original equation
d²y/dt² + 4y = 0
(i.e. d²y/dt² = - 4y)
describes simple harmonic motion if t represents time and y represents displacement.
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