does internet explorer work on imac?

No. Internet Explorer is not available on the macOS. Use a modern browser like Safari or Google Chrome instead. If a particular website says it requires Internet Explorer, then ignore that and try Safari or Chrome anyways.

If a website in 2017 still really only works in Internet Explorer (a browser with a horrible history), then you should not only complain the the company, but you should also simply stop using the website and find an alternative that uses modern web development technologies.

From Wikipedia:

On June 13, 2003, Microsoft announced that it was ceasing further development of Internet Explorer for Mac and the final update was released on July 11, 2003. The browser was not included in the default installation of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" which was released on April 29, 2005. Microsoft stopped releases for the product on December 31, 2005 and they removed the application from their Macintosh downloads site on January 31, 2006. Microsoft recommended "that users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple's Safari.

This is the reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer_for_Mac

As IE Mac was never written for Intel-powered Macs, no Mac running macOS 10.7 or higher can use the program even if you found a copy.