Fourier analysis is a subject that was born in physics but grew up in mathematics. Now it is part of the standard repertoire for mathematicians, physicists and engineers. This diversity of interest is often overlooked, but in this much-loved book, Tom Körner provides a shop window for some of the ideas, techniques and elegant results of Fourier analysis, and for their applications. These range from number theory, numerical analysis, control theory and statistics, to earth science, astronomy and electrical engineering. The prerequisites are few (a reader with knowledge of second- or third-year undergraduate mathematics should have no difficulty following the text), and the style is lively and entertaining. This edition of Körner's 1989 text includes a foreword written by Professor Terence Tao introducing it to a new generation of fans.
Thomas William Körner (born 17 February 1946) is a British pure mathematician and the author of school books. He is titular Professor of Fourier Analysis in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity Hall. He is the son of the philosopher Stephan Körner and of Edith Körner.
He studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and wrote his PhD thesis Some Results on Kronecker, Dirichlet and Helson Sets there in 1971, studying under Nicholas Varopoulos. In 1972 he won the Salem Prize.
He has written three academic mathematics books aimed at undergraduates, and two books aimed at secondary school students, the popular 1996 title The Pleasures of Counting and Naive Decision Making (published 2008) on probability, statistics and game theory.