Skip to main content
Library homepage
 

Text Color

Text Size

 

Margin Size

 

Font Type

Enable Dyslexic Font
Physics LibreTexts

10: Fourier Series and Fourier Transforms

( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)

The Fourier transform is one of the most important mathematical tools used for analyzing functions. Given an arbitrary function f(x), with a real domain (xR), we can express it as a linear combination of complex waves. The coefficients of the linear combination form a complex counterpart function, F(k), defined in a wave-number domain (kR). It turns out that F is often much easier to deal with than f; in particular, differential equations for f can often be reduced to algebraic equations for F, which are much easier to solve.


This page titled 10: Fourier Series and Fourier Transforms is shared under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Y. D. Chong via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.

Support Center

How can we help?