Over at Quanta Magazine [Shalma Wegsman] asks What Is the Fourier Transform? [Shalma] begins by telling you a little about Joseph Fourier, the French mathematician with an interest in heat propagation ...

Every machine has its own way of communicating with its operator. Some send status emails, some illuminate, but most of them vibrate and make noise. If it hums happily, that’s usually a good sign, but ...

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, ...