Theoretical analysis demonstrates real geometric origins for complex numbers in quantum theory, indicating imaginary units arise from compact dimensions and causality constraints.
Complex numbers were invented in the sixteenth century to pass through the impossible square roots of the cubic; by 1925 they had become the working substance of physics, and the puzzle of why has stood ever since — posed at full strength by Penrose, for quantum amplitudes and for the holomorphic geometry of twistor theory alike. This preprint assembles a calibrated answer. Physics contains two complex structures, both derived from globally shared real data. The gauge phase of charged matter is a real angle on the compact, non-spatial phase circle of the GG-6 bulk: charge quantization is its compactness, the Aharonov–Bohm phase its holonomy, the imaginary unit its rotation generator. The state-space i is the polar phase of the constitutional clock — the Hilbert transform, a real operator — selected uniquely by causality and energy positivity; the two coincide on charged sectors exactly under the Feynman–Stückelberg pairing, so antiparticles are the consistency condition between circle and clock. The same selection extends, conditionally, to interacting matter — and to holomorphy itself: positive frequency is Hardy-space holomorphy, forward-tube analyticity its field form, and the twistor division PT^+/PT^- is the frequency splitting, conformally packaged. The experimental exclusion of real quantum mechanics is read as direct support: one circle and one clock supply the single shared i that experiment demands. What remains open is named exactly; why C is beautiful mathematics is conceded to lie beyond physics. Part of the GG-Theory program, a series of preprints developing a six-dimensional geometric framework and its consequences for particle physics, cosmology, and open-system dynamics. The complete series is available at https://preprints.arisaka-gg.org/
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K. Arisaka (2026) studied this question.
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