Introduction to Fourier Optics

Much like a physical prism, which displays the frequency components of a light wave, Fourier analysis can be thought of as a mathematical prism that can tell us what harmonics or frequency components are contained in a recording of a sound wave. We wrote the MacScope II program1 so that the user could not only see a plot of the harmonic amplitudes but also see the harmonic waves and how these waves add together to recreate the original sound curve.