Argand Diagram
An Argand diagram is a plot of complex numbers as points
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in the complex plane using the x-axis as the real axis and y-axis
as the imaginary axis. In the plot above, the dashed
circle represents the complex modulus 
of 
and the angle 
represents its complex
argument.
While Argand (1806) is generally credited with the discovery, the Argand diagram (also known as the Argand plane) was actually described by C. Wessel prior to Argand. Historically, the geometric representation of a complex number as a point in the plane was important because it made the whole idea of a complex number more acceptable. In particular, this visualization helped "imaginary" and "complex" numbers become accepted in mainstream mathematics as a natural extension to negative numbers along the real line.
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