Fourier Everywhere

Heat, compression and more

An interactive lesson with 7 steps, about 6 minutes: you predict, drag and solve, with instant feedback on every answer. It runs in your browser and needs JavaScript.

What you’ll learn

• Fourier created his series to solve the heat equation.
• In heat flow, high harmonics fade fastest.
• JPEG, MP3, MRI and much more rely on splitting signals into frequencies.

Steps

1. From heat to JPEG
2. Fading wiggles
3. How much faster?
4. Watching the wiggles fade
5. Keeping the big coefficients
6. Building a square wave
7. Why compression works