In 1891, at the Académie des Sciences in Paris, Gabriel Lippmann 1 presented a beautiful colour photograph of the Sun's spectrum, obtained with his new photographic plate. Later, in 1894 (ref. 2), he ...

If you do any electronics work–especially digital signal processing–you probably know that any signal can be decomposed into a bunch of sine waves. Conversely, you can generate any signal by adding up ...

Built upon the ubiquitous Fourier transform, the mathematical tools known as wavelets allow unprecedented analysis and understanding of continuous signals. In an increasingly data-driven world, ...

When it comes to mathematics, the average person can probably get through most of life well enough with just basic algebra. Some simple statistical concepts would be helpful, and a little calculus ...

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, ...