ABSTRACT
MATLAB is a computer language for technical computation that is based on matrices. The numbers that make up matrices, the elements, can be complex or real numbers, or symbols. When entering complex numbers as the elements, it is useful to state them with parentheses surrounding each complex number. All the arithmetical operations that one does with real numbers in MATLAB can be carried out for complex numbers, using the same operators. That is, the + and - signs for addition and subtraction, the / for division, the ^ for raising a number to a power, and the ✽ for multiplication. One of the more tedious aspects of the algebra of complex numbers is the manipulation of the symbols in complex expressions, especially the extraction of the real and imaginary parts following a procedure requiring addition, multiplication, and division. Problems such as these are solved in MATLAB by using the statements syms or sym.
