Matrix representations of the real numbers

The main purpose of this paper is to determine all matrix representations of the real numbers. It is shown that every such representation is completely reducible, while all non-trivial irreducible representations must be of 2-dimensional and can be expressed in a unique form. It is found that those representations are essentially determined by the ways of embedding the real numbers into the complex numbers. This results in a one-to-one correspondence between the equivalent classes of irreducible representations and the equivalent classes of homomorphisms from the real number field to the complex number field. The matrix representations of the complex numbers are also determined.