Abstract
A SEARCH of the older texts has revealed an error in the analytical treatment of the graphical representation of complex numbers by Wessel in his original memoir on the subject to the Royal Academy of Denmark in 1797. The error has been perpetuated by many subsequent writers. Wessel, in proposing the representation which we now use, refers explicitly to operations on right lines, and he represents any line, algebraically, by the expression (a + eb), where + 1 is the unit vector in a given direction and + e a unit vector in a direction inclined to that of the + 1 vector at an angle of 90°. The + 1 does not appear explicitly in his analysis.
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