The Math Trick Behind MP3s, JPEGs, and Homer Simpson’s Face - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/the-math-trick-behind-mp3s-jpegs-and-homer-simpsons-face
Nine years ago, I was sitting in a college math physics course and my professor spelt out an idea that kind of blew my mind. I think it isn’t a stretch to say that this is one of the most widely applicable mathematical discoveries, with applications ranging from optics to quantum physics, radio astronomy, MP3 and JPEG compression, X-ray crystallography, voice recognition, and PET or MRI scans. This mathematical tool—named the Fourier transform, after 18th-century French physicist and (...)