[time-nuts] thermal transfer - even a little further OT
Jim Lux
james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov
Sat Jul 12 17:38:13 UTC 2008
Quoting Mark Amos <mark.amos at toast.net>, on Sat 12 Jul 2008 10:13:36 AM PDT:
> Timenuts,
>
> In introductory texts regarding the FFT there is some mention of
> Fourier's studies having had something to
> do with heat transfer. Yet most of the FFT work I've been exposed
> to has to do with decomposing signals
> into component sinusoids, translating between time and frequency domain, etc.
>
> Does anyone have a "layman's" explanation of how this relates to
> what Fourier was trying to do with heat
> transfer?
M. Fourier was looking at the problem of heat transfer in cannon
barrels, which, in 2D is a ring (aka a continuous periodic function).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier has more info (including
the interesting thing that I didn't know before, about his discovery
of the greenhouse effect)
More information about the Time-nuts_lists.febo.com
mailing list