OFFSET
0,3
COMMENTS
The use of negabinary dispenses with the need for sign bits and for keeping track of signed and unsigned data types. Similarly, the use of base 2i, or quater-imaginary, dispenses with the need to represent the real and imaginary parts of a complex number separately. (The term "quater-imaginary" appears in Knuth's landmark book on computer programming).
Quater-imaginary, based on the powers of 2i (twice the imaginary unit), uses the digits 0, 1, 2, 3. For purely real positive integers, the quater-imaginary representation is the same as negaquartal (base -4) except that 0's are "riffled" in, corresponding to the odd-indexed powers of 2i which are purely imaginary numbers. Therefore, to obtain the base 2i representations of positive real numbers, the algorithm for base -4 representations can be employed with only a small adjustment.
To obtain the base 2i representation of a complex number a+bi, do as above for the real part, then again for the real part of 2i*(a+bi) = -2b+2ai, giving the digits corresponding to the odd-indexed powers of 2i.
Omitting digits for odd powers of 2i (all 0's for the imaginary parts) (e.g. 20300 --> 230) gives A007608 (nonnegative integers in base -4).
REFERENCES
Donald Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming. Volume 2, 2nd Edition. Reading, Massachussetts: Addison-Wesley (1981): 189
LINKS
Joerg Arndt, Table of n, a(n) for n = 0..1000
Joerg Arndt, Radix 2i
Donald Knuth, An imaginary number system, Communications of the ACM 3 (4), April 1960, pp. 245-247.
OEIS Wiki, Quater-imaginary base
Wikipedia, Quater-imaginary base
EXAMPLE
a(5) = 10301 because 5 = 1*(2i)^4+3*(2i)^2+1*(2i)^0 = 1*16+3*(-4)+1*1
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn,base
AUTHOR
Daniel Forgues, May 18 2012
STATUS
approved