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Who Is Fourier?: A Mathematical Adventure
In Who is Fourier? A Mathematical Adventure, the student authors take the reader along on their adventure of discovery of Fourier's wave analysis, creating a work that gradually moves from basics to the more complicated mathematics of trigonometry, exponentiation, differentiation, and integration. This is done in a way that is not only easy to understand, but is actually fun!
Professors and engineers, with high school and college students following closely, comprise the largest percentage of our readers. It is a must-have for anyone interested in music, mathematics, physics, engineering, or complex science.
Dr. Yoichiro Nambu, 2008 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, served as a senior adviser to the English version of Who is Fourier? A Mathematical Adventure.
Professors and engineers, with high school and college students following closely, comprise the largest percentage of our readers. It is a must-have for anyone interested in music, mathematics, physics, engineering, or complex science.
Dr. Yoichiro Nambu, 2008 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, served as a senior adviser to the English version of Who is Fourier? A Mathematical Adventure.
435 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1995
21 people are currently reading
338 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
June 2, 2014
A really charming exploration of a number of mathematical principles. This book handles its main topic (Fourier series) particularly well, giving both a thorough explanation of the formulae involved and their derivation and simple analogy by which to understand these.
Though this book is clearly designed to be accessible to a younger reader, I found it perfectly agreeable; while informal and humorous it avoided being patronising.
There were some oddities however. I feel like the treatment of differentiation and integration was made overly complicated and messy. I also found it odd that fractions and decimal points were explained on page 317 well after covering Fourier series, differentiation, integration, vectors and complex numbers.
I feel like there are better books for explaining the later topics, but for Fourier series alone it's pretty amazing.
Though this book is clearly designed to be accessible to a younger reader, I found it perfectly agreeable; while informal and humorous it avoided being patronising.
There were some oddities however. I feel like the treatment of differentiation and integration was made overly complicated and messy. I also found it odd that fractions and decimal points were explained on page 317 well after covering Fourier series, differentiation, integration, vectors and complex numbers.
I feel like there are better books for explaining the later topics, but for Fourier series alone it's pretty amazing.
December 26, 2007
The transnational college of lex maybe the coolest thing ever. A cartoon book that teaches Fourier theory? Could it be true?
January 27, 2019
I couldn't finish this book. So why am I giving it 4 stars? I find as I have become aged that it is more difficult to learn. Not impossible, I must have some motivation. The subject itself, though somewhat interesting to me, did not motivate me to really tackle the math. That being said, I really enjoyed the novel approach the book made to learning and I also liked the very upbeat way it presented material.
April 10, 2019
The flow of this book is ideal for the learner who knows nothing about mathematics. The way that this book has helped me deeply understand and connect the dots in FFT has been phenomenal. I recommend this to everyone who wants to simply fall in love with our world and how our brains work and perceive sound.
March 4, 2019
Love this book, don't know how anyone could dislike this.
August 9, 2023
Love this.
September 2, 2015
I was impressed by the concept of LEX and this book
This book was originally written to convey the experiences of the Transnational College of LEX (TCL), also known as Torakare, to as many members of the Hippo Group as possible. The college was founded in Tokyo in 1984 as a place where people could study the relationships between human beings and languages. People of all ages, from recent high school graduates to grandparents, study there. It is a school with no homework or exams and no taking of attendance, although people do graduate. Senior fellows, scientists and academicians are also there to lecture and help direct the people in their studies. The Hippo Family Club is the name that the group went by before the LEX name was taken, so the members and graduates are often referred to by that legacy title.
The language studies conducted at LEX are amazing, the Hippo members practice speaking eleven different languages at the same time. Their approach is that every form of human endeavor, mathematics included, has its’ own specific language. Therefore, the idea behind this book was to write a description of Fourier series that would be understandable by as many people as possible.
In that capacity, they have succeeded very well, they start with the basic idea that all speech is a set of waveforms that can be described by sine and cosine curves. Moving slowly from this point, the plotting of complex waveforms by combining different curves is demonstrated. The calculus operations of differentiation and integration are included and the final stop is at the Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs).
Many diagrams are used along this journey, reflecting the incremental nature of the presentation. The slow speed of coverage makes it inappropriate as a textbook, but it would be an excellent book for individual study. However, if you knew some of the math, you would find those sections boring. In many ways, this book has the appearance of a children’s workbook, only there are not very many exercises to work through.
While I often found the pace tedious, I remain impressed by the concept of LEX and this book. It is readily admitted early on that it is the work of amateurs, but the authors clearly had fun in writing it and they do explain the topic in complete detail.
This review also appears on Amazon
This book was originally written to convey the experiences of the Transnational College of LEX (TCL), also known as Torakare, to as many members of the Hippo Group as possible. The college was founded in Tokyo in 1984 as a place where people could study the relationships between human beings and languages. People of all ages, from recent high school graduates to grandparents, study there. It is a school with no homework or exams and no taking of attendance, although people do graduate. Senior fellows, scientists and academicians are also there to lecture and help direct the people in their studies. The Hippo Family Club is the name that the group went by before the LEX name was taken, so the members and graduates are often referred to by that legacy title.
The language studies conducted at LEX are amazing, the Hippo members practice speaking eleven different languages at the same time. Their approach is that every form of human endeavor, mathematics included, has its’ own specific language. Therefore, the idea behind this book was to write a description of Fourier series that would be understandable by as many people as possible.
In that capacity, they have succeeded very well, they start with the basic idea that all speech is a set of waveforms that can be described by sine and cosine curves. Moving slowly from this point, the plotting of complex waveforms by combining different curves is demonstrated. The calculus operations of differentiation and integration are included and the final stop is at the Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs).
Many diagrams are used along this journey, reflecting the incremental nature of the presentation. The slow speed of coverage makes it inappropriate as a textbook, but it would be an excellent book for individual study. However, if you knew some of the math, you would find those sections boring. In many ways, this book has the appearance of a children’s workbook, only there are not very many exercises to work through.
While I often found the pace tedious, I remain impressed by the concept of LEX and this book. It is readily admitted early on that it is the work of amateurs, but the authors clearly had fun in writing it and they do explain the topic in complete detail.
This review also appears on Amazon
January 7, 2010
This is a fantastic book in many ways. First the math is interesting and important, but second and more important is the way the math is taught to you. Everything is delivered in small incremental pieces that are intuitive and easy to understand. The reason for not giving it 5 stars is they kind of got away from this approach towards the end of the book
November 27, 2009
This book clearly teaches the elementary principles of Fourier series. There was a lot of superfluous fluff that supposedly makes this more palatable to a younger audience. I am not sure if it does, but while at times I felt foolish reading it, it was amusing
March 2, 2015
Amazingly simple and clear introduction to Fourier Analysis.
July 29, 2024
BRILLIANT. I absolutely love the style and the gentle introduction to complex topics.
April 1, 2017
A very clear, complete introduction to Fourier Analysis, especially the intuitions involved. The author's go to great lengths to explain every aspect, including e, i, and Euler's formula. I came away learning a lot more about the intuition behind Fourier analysis, and how it relates.
In particular, it is interesting because the author's goal is analyzing human speech, and the mysteries. This included a particularly interesting geometric example of Japanese values. Overall, this is a great book, and I may re-read some of these chapters in the future. For anyone interested in learning the basics of Fourier analysis in a fun way, this book is highly recommended.
In particular, it is interesting because the author's goal is analyzing human speech, and the mysteries. This included a particularly interesting geometric example of Japanese values. Overall, this is a great book, and I may re-read some of these chapters in the future. For anyone interested in learning the basics of Fourier analysis in a fun way, this book is highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews