Audio Edition: What Is the Fourier Transform?
6/18/202613 min
Amid the chaos of revolutionary France, one man’s mathematical obsession gave way to a calculation that now underpins much of mathematics and physics. The calculation, called the Fourier transform, decomposes any function into its parts.
The story What Is the Fourier Transform? first appeared on Quanta Magazine.
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSusan Valot· Host0:01
What if your discovery of a natural gene-editing mechanism launched a revolution?
Speaker 20:06
What if your abstract math proofs had unexpected connections to the real world?
Susan Valot· Host0:11
What if your Nobel Prize-winning work on the expanding universe was just the beginning of the story?
Speaker 20:17
And what if you joined us, Steve Strogatz- And Janna Levin ... to learn about all of this and much more on one podcast?
Susan Valot· Host0:24
Listen to season five of Quanta Magazine's- The Joy of Why. New episodes drop every other Thursday starting June 11th. [upbeat music] Welcome to the Quanta Audio Edition. In each of these biweekly episodes, we bring you a story direct from the Quanta website about developments in basic science and mathematics. I'm Susan Valot. Amid the chaos of revolutionary France, one man's mathematical obsession gave way to a calculation that now underpins much of mathematics and physics. The calculation, called the Fourier transform, decomposes any function into its parts. That's next. [upbeat music] Quanta Magazine is an editorially independent online publication supported by the Simons Foundation to enhance public understanding of science.