# Raise complex number using De Moivre - integer only?

1. Mar 27, 2012

### jkristia

This is probably a silly question, but it is not really clear to me whether De Moivre's theorem of raising a complex number to the nth power only work if n is an integer value?
E.g. if I try to raise (2-2i) to the power of 3.01 then my manual calculation get a different result than my calculator, but for all integer values it works.

2. Mar 27, 2012

### cepheid

Staff Emeritus
Well, at least according to the Wikipedia article on the subject, 'n' must be an integer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Moivre's_formula

3. Mar 27, 2012

### jkristia

>>Well, at least according to the Wikipedia article on the subject, 'n' must be an integer:
argh, I missed that. Thanks
Do you know how I can raise a complex number by a real number?

4. Mar 27, 2012

### cupcakes

I may be wrong but in mathematics, n is used to denote an integer by convention.

5. Mar 27, 2012

### jkristia

>>I may be wrong but in mathematics, n is used to denote an integer by convention.
I think you are right.

6. Mar 27, 2012

### scurty

You can raise it to any power by using this method:

$z^w = e^{ln|z^w|} = e ^{w \cdot ln|z|}$ and simplify from there. From the top of my head, I believe this formula gives an infinite number of solutions depending on how you choose your branch of the logarithm.

7. Mar 28, 2012

### HallsofIvy

Staff Emeritus
No, the power does not have to be an integer. DeMoivre's formula is very commonly used, for example, to find roots, the "1/n" power.

8. Mar 28, 2012

### jkristia

After some more Bing'ing I found this
http://www.suitcaseofdreams.net/De_Moivre_formula.htm

For r = 1 we obtain De Moivre’s formula for fractional powers:
(cos+i sin)p/q = cos((p/q))+i sin((p/q)). (1.27)

So the decimal power should work as well, right?. I will try and convert the decimal to a fraction, but I dont see why it would make a difference.

When I tried it worked correct for quadrant I and II, but I could not get it right for III and IV.

I will keep playing with this.

9. Mar 29, 2012

### jkristia

I played some more with this and it was all just a matter of adjusting θ depending of the quadrant.