Complex numbers are constrained to move with their basis vectors, unable to explore all of spacetime.
Complex numbers have some freedom to move in space. The 3 straight lines indicate a choice of Cartesian basis vectors, but other basis vectors could have been chosen. Complex numbers are used extensively in quantum mechanics. Yet the obvious limitations in the animations suggest we should rebuild the foundations of complex-valued quantum mechanics. Sounds like a lot of work!
Real numbers are dead dull in an animation, nailed to the origin, the only differences involving when they blink.
The real number -1 in blue is added to the real number 3 in yellow to generate the real number 2 in green.
The global economy is fueled by real numbers. This is somewhat frightening when you realize how excedingly dull real numbers are in an animation. They are paralyzed, able to exists in only one place, the origin 0, 0, 0. Their variation comes from blinking at different times from now. Minus real numbers are in the past, positives in the future, and only one point may exist at the origin at time zero or now. This set of blinking lights is totally ordered: a real number at the origin will either be before, after or at the same time as another point.
