Mechanical Fourier Calculator

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cuttime
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Mechanical Fourier Calculator

Post by cuttime »

Since it's kind of quiet on the comet front, I ran across this to satisfy my inner geek.
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Shooshie
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Re: Mechanical Fourier Calculator

Post by Shooshie »

Amazing. And if that's amazing, this is amazing times 10:

Mechanical Fourier Analysis

It shows the same machine used to analyze the harmonics, extract the coefficients, and predict the sines needed to sum as a given wave form. Fourier analysis from a mechanical device! But not so surprising, I guess, when you consider that such math was created to solve real problems that CAN be described in a mechanical way.

Shooshie
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cuttime
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Re: Mechanical Fourier Calculator

Post by cuttime »

I think this is even more amazing than the Michelson-Morley experiment, but shows the ingenuity of the 19th Century mind. Makes Steam Punk look legitimate.
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Re: Mechanical Fourier Calculator

Post by Shooshie »

cuttime wrote:I think this is even more amazing than the Michelson-Morley experiment, but shows the ingenuity of the 19th Century mind. Makes Steam Punk look legitimate.
Yeah, steampunk is cool, actually. I have used it for desktop icons and backgrounds. It seems like fantasy to believe that the old, simple world could cross over into the complex worlds of science and math, but underscoring the seeming complexity of advanced science and math are the simplest of relationships. For example, the ratio forming one of the most complex numbers known — π — is the simplest to describe, and one that any living creature can experience: take a stick, pivot it around from its center point. A complete rotation of one endpoint circumscribes π, relative to the length of the stick. How could anything so simple and obvious be so irrational?
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Phil O
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Re: Mechanical Fourier Calculator

Post by Phil O »

Pretty cool. Back in the old days, I had a job at a Boston hospital as an engineer in the anesthesia department. An intern had "invented" what he called the BARC (Bedside Analog Respiratory Computer) which he never got working. One of my first jobs was to make it work. The analysis section used the same sort of techniques, but using analog circuits. I've since then forgotten more than I remember about that math. :?

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Shooshie
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Re: Mechanical Fourier Calculator

Post by Shooshie »

Phil O wrote:I've since then forgotten more than I remember about that math.
Math is definitely a use it or lose it kind of thing, but when I get deeply engrossed in physics, it slowly starts coming back to me. I think the secret is to think like Richard Feynman, constructing real-world models or analogs for what you're trying to solve. And that's exactly what that machine does. In fact, it does it so well that it helps me visualize that math better than anything I ever saw before. I think one could almost do it without the machine, based on knowing how it works. Almost. Well... ok, that's an exaggeration. But you can certainly understand it better.

Now I've got to go watch Feynman's Cornel lectures again.

Shooshie
|l| OS X 10.12.6 |l| DP 10.0 |l| 2.4 GHz 12-Core MacPro Mid-2012 |l| 40GB RAM |l| Mach5.3 |l| Waves 9.x |l| Altiverb |l| Ivory 2 New York Steinway |l| Wallander WIVI 2.30 Winds, Brass, Saxes |l| Garritan Aria |l| VSL 5.3.1 and VSL Pro 2.3.1 |l| Yamaha WX-5 MIDI Wind Controller |l| Roland FC-300 |l|
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