This article arises because of a lecture I attended where the speaker, who had been heavily involved in the new JMB A level syllabus, was saying that roots of unity had gone, “thank goodness.” Many A level teachers seemed to agree and I began wondering just how “traditional” this topic is. I came to the conclusion that it is the most revealing topic to show the meshing of traditional and modern ideas. I hope to illustrate this by the end of this article.