Much like a physical prism, which displays the frequency components of a light wave, Fourier analysis can be thought of as a mathematical prism that can tell us what harmonics or frequency components are contained in a recording of a sound wave. We wrote the MacScope II program1 so that the user could not only see a plot of the harmonic amplitudes but also see the harmonic waves and how these waves add together to recreate the original sound curve.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Elisha Huggins (2007) studied this question.