Is $\mathbb{C}$ equal to $\mathbb{R}^2$?

Complex numbers are usually formally defined as pairs of real numbers. Although there are operations on $\mathbb{C}$, such as complex multiplication, which are not found in operations usually applied to $\mathbb{R}^2$, the sets themselves seem to be the same. Each consists of pairs of real numbers.

So is it okay to say that $\mathbb{C} = \mathbb{R}^2$? It seems formally correct, but something doesn't feel quite right about it.

The answer is both yes, and no.

$\Bbb C$ and $\Bbb R^2$ are both sets with the same cardinality, and they have a very natural bijection between them which preserves a lot of nice properties. So much that we can almost say that these two sets are the same for a lot of purposes.

But these two carry very different structure as a natural structure. $\Bbb C$ is a field and $\Bbb R^2$ is not (because pointwise multiplication does not form a field). One can even argue that formally $\Bbb C$ is in fact $\Bbb R[x]/(x^2+1)$, and not $\Bbb R^2$, and one would be at least partially correct.

Personally, I'd support the "no" answer more than the "yes" answer. And here's why. We often like to think about $\Bbb R$ as a subset of $\Bbb C$. Namely $x\in\Bbb C$ is a real number if and only if $\overline x=x$. But $\Bbb R$ is not a subset of $\Bbb R^2$, instead there is an obvious embedding $x\mapsto(x,0)$, but still real numbers are generally not ordered pairs of real numbers (you can even notice that this approach takes $\Bbb C$ as sort of a primitive notion, and not quite as $\Bbb R[x]/(x^2+1)$ as others might see it).

Although, as I said, it depends on how you define things, because "formally" things can be done in plenty of different ways.

You can define the set of complex numbers in different ways. One of those ways defined $\mathbb C$ to be $\mathbb R^2$ and then goes on to define the algebraic structure of the complex numbers. If that is the way you define the complex numbers, then it is certainly correct to write $\mathbb C = \mathbb R^2$ as sets.