26: Fourier
| Fourier |
 Title text: That cat has some serious periodic components |
Explanation
A Fourier transform is a mathematical function often used in physics and engineering.
Transcript
- [Person talks on phone. Cat with many sharp points looks on.]
- Person on phone: Hi, Dr. Elizabeth? Yeah, uh ... I accidentally took the Fourier transform of my cat ...
- Cat: Meow!
Trivia
- Original comments from Randall: "I like the idea of a graph meowing. Also, that cat has a lot of periodic components."
- This is the twenty-seventh comic originally posted to livejournal. The previous was 25: Barrel - Part 4. The next was 27: Meat Cereals.
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Isn't the cat also imaginary because its Fourier transform isn't symmetric?
I feel like there's another joke in that his cat is "imaginary" or has complex components.
Shdwdrgn (talk) 06:33, 8 October 2014 (UTC)shdwdrgn
Picking up on shdwdrgn's comment above, how interesting would the Fourier transform of Schroedingers's cat be. I guess it would consist of two overlaid graphs neither of which would be certain until you actually looked at it.EditorGonk (talk) 09:38, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
Might this also be a Garfield joke? Garfield's veterinarian is named Liz. Although Garfield, being roughly a three-dimensional ovoid, would probably end up with a much different looking Fourier transform than what is depicted here. --199.27.130.246 21:26, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
I think the transform may be of the movements of various parts of the cat. Cats tend to move their ears and heads a lot, and other parts, less so. What tipped me off is the spike at the tip of the tail. Cats typically twitch the very tip of their tail in a rhythmic fashion. 108.162.216.192 21:52, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Coincidentially, the Fourier transform of a cat was used in a 2003 paper on the so-called phase problem in protein crystallography (figure 3) to illustrate the relevance of phase and amplitude information. See http://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2003/11/00/ba5050/index.html and http://journals.iucr.org/d/issues/2003/11/00/ba5050/ba5050fig3.html
Can someone do a reverse fourier transform on the cat's graph and post it here please? --162.158.79.37 18:12, 14 July 2020 (UTC)Bumpf
I have done a fourier transform on the graph but sorry to report it's not that interesting. I can't figure out how to upload here so here's an imgur link https://imgur.com/a/APfAxLb (First time contributing sorry if I do something wrong)--T7685 (talk) 00:49, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
- You did great! Thank you for the graphs, I uploaded them myself and added them to the article! --FaviFake (talk) 15:40, 10 March 2025 (UTC)
In an attempt to find calculated fourier series of cats I found this gem: Interpreting Fourier transforms Wanderer Sinner (talk) 17:37, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
My guess is that if you shift the black part of the graph by -50, it will form the cat. 2A0D:3344:34CA:3110:7472:DB46:583D:B4A 07:25, 4 August 2025 (UTC)Unknown Add comment
