[time-nuts] thermal transfer - even a little further OT
Mark Amos
mark.amos at toast.net
Sat Jul 12 13:13:36 EDT 2008
Timenuts,
In introductory texts regarding the FFT there is some mention of Fourier's studies having had something to
do with heat transfer. Yet most of the FFT work I've been exposed to has to do with decomposing signals
into component sinusoids, translating between time and frequency domain, etc.
Does anyone have a "layman's" explanation of how this relates to what Fourier was trying to do with heat
transfer?
I suspect my problem is mostly one of "student density", but I can't make the connection between heat
transfer and what I think of when I think of FFT (unless I were to relate it to infrared radiation, which I
don't suppose Fourier would have been thinking about...)
Thanks, in advance,
Mark
"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because
nobody sees it." -- Mohandas Gandhi
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