alt Hacker NewsWhy use a unit complex number (2 numbers) instead of an angle (1 number)? Maybe it optimizes out the sins and cosses better — I don't know — but a cache is not a new type of number.
Why use a unit complex number (2 numbers) instead of an angle (1 number)? Maybe it optimizes out the sins and cosses better — I don't know — but a cache is not a new type of number.
Because rotations with complex numbers is not just rotations, its rotations+scaling.
The advantage of complex numbers is to rotate+scale something (or more generally move somewhere in a complex plane), is a one step multiplication operation.