Who Is Fourier? a Mathematical Adventure: Amazon.ca: Transnational College of Lex Tokyo, Yo Sakakibara, Alan Gleason: Books

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29 Reviews

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4.8 out of 5 stars (29 customer reviews)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Adventure, Sep 29 2001

By

"chandp" (Fremont, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Is Fourier? a Mathematical Adventure (Paperback)

The motivation for this book is rooted in a club in Japan that is dedicated to learning foreign languages. Its members began to wonder about the sounds of languages, and this curiosity led them to the study of Fourier series, which they applied to analyze spoken sounds.

To start with, this book introduces the concepts behind the Fourier series and the calculation of Fourier coefficients. It then discusses Fourier analysis of the five vowels of the Japanese language. The conclusions are enlightening to say the least.

Rather than end here, as it could have, this book continues on to develop in some detail the mathematics behind the Fourier series. This includes forays into trigonometry, limits, differentiaion, integration, vectors, infinite series, the constants e and i, and Euler's formula. At all times it provides concrete motivation for new concepts, and supports them with superb visualization. When previously introduced concepts are needed, they are always reviewed in place, instead of assuming that the reader has mastered them, or will go back to the original material.

One strength of this book that should not be overlooked is that its translation is very good. That is, the reader is not aware that it is a translation.

While most people who are aware of Fourier series probably have the necessary background in mathematics to make this book feel "accessible", I wonder whether someone who has never gone beyond high school algebra and geometry would feel the same way.

One disappointment for me was the final chapter, the one on FFT. Its presentation of the discrete Fourier transform was good, but its development of the algorithm became unnecesarrily complicated. Though I found the explanation in an algorithms book more to my liking, without the background from this book, particularly Euler's formula, I surely would not have understood that one at all.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book on fourier transform, Jan 11 2004

By

Ting Liu (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Who Is Fourier? a Mathematical Adventure (Paperback)

This book has done an excellent job on explaining fourier transformation. Although I believe I have clear understanding on fourier transform, this book takes me to a new journey and let me look at this transform from another perspective. Well done!

However, the reason I can not give this book five star is that the book contains many redundant and irrelavant dialogues which distract your attention from time to time. To speed up your reading, you have to filter it out.

In addition, this book is over size and make it difficult for bed-time reading.

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5.0 out of 5 stars DESRVE MORE THAN 100 STARS, Aug 2 2003

By

Ahmed Morsi (JEDDAH, AZZIZEYA Saudi Arabia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Is Fourier? a Mathematical Adventure (Paperback)

the Transnational Colege of Lex Tokyo has done two beautiful books this one and the other marvelous book "what is quantum mechanics" which also worth its weight gold,I have bought alot of books and i found these two books plus epstein's marvel "thinking physics" are the best sceince books writen in the english language ever.back to this book,,,
in short ..excellent work.its very very pedagogical and step by step one will master the subject.

my only note on fourier's book is on the treatment of the fast fourier transform which is not really as good as the rest of the book.
any one like a crystal clear exposition on this please refer to
"the scientists and engineers guide to digital signal processing".
in future i will buy any book transnational co. will issue.
my only hope is that transnational colege next pne will be on the general relativity and will see subject of tensors and manifolds that kind of clearity and understandability.thanx 4 reading my review.

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5.0 out of 5 stars DESERVE MORE THAN 100 STARS
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1.0 out of 5 stars So, who is Fourier?
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