Archived Harmonic Analyzer, a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis (youtu.be)
submitted ago by SilverBanana
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Archived on: 2/12/2017 1:51:00 AM
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Archived Harmonic Analyzer, a nineteenth century mechanical computer that performed Fourier analysis (youtu.be)
submitted ago by SilverBanana
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[–] scorinth 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
FWIW, this has nothing to do with FFT or wavelet transforms, so computers don't really do this kind of thing anymore. Fun fact, though, the math that this does is essentially the same thing that Hammond organs do - the electric organs have a set of "tone wheels" that have sine waves cut into them and they spin past magnetic pickups, so the output is a mixture of sine waves just like this machine. The drawbars on the organs do basically the same thing that sliding those pushrods back and forth on the harmonic analyzer does.