Unscrambling the Infinite: Can we Compute Spectra?

摘要

When you listen to a piece of music, the sound signal consists of a sum of individual simple frequencies or oscillatory components. Mathematically, these different components can be revealed by applying the Fourier transform, named after the French mathematician Joseph Fourier. Fourier introduced the idea of representing temperature as a sum of simpler oscillatory components in his fundamental study of heat. This representation allowed the system to be split into simpler parts and analysed.