kevlenedon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Demystifying Fourier analysis”
The 2-minute brute-force explanation of Fourier transforms in a recent Veritasium video was my "aha!" moment. link to this video
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#fastfouriertransform#fft#fouriertransform
The Most Underrated Algorithm
Veritasium
21M subscribers • 25 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 6 people: 5 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
10M views4 years ago6 recommendations
Computer scienceHistory and cultureAlgorithmsComputation and complexityHistory of computing
How the Fast Fourier Transform works and how it was used to detect nuclear tests during the Cold War.
The Fast Fourier Transform is used everywhere but it has a fascinating origin story that could have ended the nuclear arms race. This video is sponsored by 80,000 Hours. Head to 80000hours.org/veritasium to sign up for their newsletter and get sent a free copy of their in-depth career guide. A huge thank you to Dr. Richard Garwin for taking the time to speak with us. Thanks to Dr. Steve Brunton of the University of Washington for his help with understanding the Fast Fourier Transform. Thanks to Dr. Cliff Thurber of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Paul Richards of Columbia University, and Dr. Steven Gibbons of the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute for their expertise. Thanks to Grant Sanderson of 3Blue1Brown for his helpful feedback on the script. His great video on the Fourier Transform is here - youtu.be/spUNpyF58BY ▀▀▀ References: Kristensen, H.M., Korda, M. (2022). Status of World Nuclear Forces. Federation of American Scientists (FAS). ve42.co/Stockpile2022 Barth, K. H. (1998). Science and politics in early nuclear test ban negotiations. Physics Today, 51(3), 34-39. - ve42.co/Barth1998 Schmalberger, T. (1991). In pursuit of a nuclear test ban treaty - ve42.co/Schmalberger1991 Bowers, D., & Selby, N. D. (2009). Forensic seismology and the comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 37, 209-236 - ve42.co/Bowers2009 Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). (2022). How Often Do Earthquakes Occur? ve42.co/IRIS2022 Kimball, D. (2022). The Nuclear Testing Tally. Arms Control Association. ve42.co/TestTally2022 Kværna, T., & Ringdal, F. (2013). Detection capability of the seismic network of the International Monitoring System for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 103(2A), 759-772 - ve42.co/Kvrna2013 Sykes, L. R., & Evernden, J. F. (1982). The verification of a comprehensive nuclear test ban. Scientific American, 247(4), 47-55 - ve42.co/Sykes1982 Peterson, J., & Hutt, C. R. (2014). World-wide standardized seismograph network: a data users guide (p. 82). US Department of the Interior, US Geological Survey. - ve42.co/Peterson2014 Richards, P. G., & Kim, W. Y. (2009). Monitoring for nuclear explosions. Scientific American, 300(3), 70-77 - ve42.co/Richards2009 Jacobsen, L. L., Fedorova, I., & Lajus, J. (2021). The seismograph as a diplomatic object: The Soviet–American exchange of instruments, 1958–1964. Centaurus, 63(2), 277-295 - ve42.co/Jacobsen2021 Schwartz S. I. (1998). The Hidden Costs Of Our Nuclear Arsenal: Overview Of Project Findings. The Brookings Institution - ve42.co/Schwartz1998 Ricón, J.L. (2016). The Soviet Union: Military Spending. Nintil - ve42.co/Nintil2016 Heideman, M. T., Johnson, D. H., & Burrus, C. S. (1985). Gauss and the history of the fast Fourier transform. Archive foWhy it's here
6 people recommend thisWhat people say. Recommended as an engaging and intuitive explanation of the Fast Fourier Transform and its historical significance.
kippinitrealon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?”
That video did the same for me. I also like the reducible video for Fast Fourier Transforms as well as the Veratasium piece that shares some fun history. Reducible - FFTs the most ingenious algorithm ever link Veritasium - The Most Important Algorithm of All Time link to this video
yunruseon Hacker News • Recommends
On “I over-engineered a Fast Fourier Transform for Arduino”
…lot faster by using this. The FFT takes the naive O(N^2) algorithm and makes it O(n log n) by bunching together repeated calculations, so if you have a million samples, that's some 70,000 times faster. At the time of its discovery it was critical for Fourier analysis to actually be reasonable to do on a computer, taking days instead of years. 0 link to this video 1 link 2 link…
psychphysicon Hacker News • Recommends
On “Fascinating Interview with Martin Hellman of Diffie-Hellman Fame (2004)”
You might also like this recent Veritasium video on the link between the Nuclear test ban treaty and FFT. link to this video
ourmandaveon Hacker News • Recommends
On “The Fourier Transform, explained in one sentence”
Veritasium has an explainer of the Fast Fourier Transform on youtube. From how it's used and an interest history. link to this video
u/CyAScottin r/dotnet • Mentions
On “What is the best C# Library for detecting pitch from voice singing (through microphone)?”
FFT is a cool algorithm, this link to this video explains it well.
watersbon Hacker News • Mentions
On “What is interferometry?”
I recommend learning about the Fourier Transform, and then peeking at how frequency transformations are used to represent everyday images, like the Cosine Transform used in JPEG. 3 blue 1 brown FFT: link JPEG components link I worked at the Very Large Array radio telescope for a while, and even so the language didn't click for me until I thought about the signal transforms that have become ubiquitous in everyday life. And a co worker described the telescope as a double-slit experiment, with multiple 2-D holes instead of slits; imagine the interference pattern that you get when you have multiple slits. The elements of an interferometer are the "slits", but they are receiving the light rat…
graycaton Hacker News • Mentions
On “Not so fast, Mr. Fourier”
Consider ordinary 3 dimensional space: Go to a corner of the room, where the floor and two walls meet, and see three lines, each line the intersection of the two walls or a wall and the floor. In usual building architecture, these three lines are mutually perpendicular, i.e., orthogonal . Regard each of these three lines as an axis of a coordinate system. In particular, pick a point on each of the three axes to give us points with coordinates: (1,0,0) -- the X axis (0,1,0) -- the Y axis (0,0,1) -- the Z axis Soooo, now we have a standard coordinate system for ordinary 3 dimensional space. Now consider a point P in the room (in my case, the end of the pony tail of that sweet, gorgeous blond I…
AndrewOMartinon Hacker News • Mentions
On “The Fourier Transform: What's Wrong with It?”
I saw this one a while ago. link to this video - The Remarkable Story Behind The Most Important Algorithm Of All Time In summary, FFT is just a "dynamic programming" version of Fourier Transforms, in that it's the same idea, just with avoiding repeating a lot of duplicated calculations.
AlexErranton Hacker News • Mentions
On “Yoshua Bengio: Humanity faces a 'catastrophic' future if we don't regulate AI”
> The solution is a middle ground, where we talk to the Chinese and we come to an understanding that's in our mutual interest in avoiding major catastrophes. We sign treaties and we work on verification technologies so we can trust each other that we're not doing anything dangerous. Veritasium has a video on how developing the fast fourier transform a few years earlier may have prevented the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviets (by allowing independent verification of how many nuclear tests were done.) link to this video What technology can monitor the development of AI in a foreign country?