Jean-Robert Argand (1768 - 1822) was an accountant and bookkeeper in Paris who was only an amateur mathematician.

Argand is famed for his geometrical interpretation of the complex numbers where multiplication by i is interpreted as an anti-clockwise rotation through 90°. The concept of the modulus of a complex number is also due to Argand but Cauchy, who used the term later, is usually credited as the originator this concept.

The fact that his name is associated with this geometrical interpretation of complex numbers is only as a result of a rather strange sequence of events.

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