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 ...

Joseph Fourier, born just 250 years ago, introduced a wonderful idea that revolutionised science and mathematics: any function or signal can be broken down into simple periodic sine-waves. Radio waves ...

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 ...