

Demystifying the Fourier Magic - rweba
http://xrds.acm.org/blog/2013/02/demystifying-the-fourier-magic/

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pfortuny
I am a mathematician (not that it is relevant) but honestly, "demystifying"
seems a bit exaggerated for a piece of commentary which simply makes it all
more complicated than it is.

If the aim is to 'abstract' it, then call it 'abstraction' but demystifying is
rather far-fetched.

Yes, the Fourier transform is no more than the expression of the elements of a
Hilbert space in a complete basis: get over it and move on? Is it clear? You
can generalize it even more.

But honestly, as Abhyankar has been quoted saying, the real question is...
"What is a polynomial?" That is the really difficult question to answer.

Sorry for the rant but titles should really be at least honest (I agree they
have to be attractive but...).

~~~
Luyt
When I read 'demystified', I expected something that would explain the Fourier
Transform in simple terms... something like
[http://betterexplained.com/articles/an-interactive-guide-
to-...](http://betterexplained.com/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-the-
fourier-transform) does.

