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For most people, having only the equations means they cannot build an intuition for what a fourier transform actually is, because they don't have a solid enough
by ath92 5y ago
For most people, having only the equations means they cannot build an intuition for what a fourier transform actually is, because they don't have a solid enough grasp of math notation to easily make sense of what the dense equations actually represent.
For those people it's very helpful to first get a sense of what it all means (even if it means that initial mental model is somewhat imprecise), because it makes understanding the equations easier.
- xNeil 5y agoSurprisingly for me, it's the other way around! Equations build intuition in my case, although I'm not sure why.
- thomasahle 5y agoMy experience is that visuals help people _feel_ like they understand the concept, but the equations are necessary to get an _operational_ knowledge. It's all well and good to be able to talk about the "deepest human knowledge" at a dinner party, but it doesn't help you solve actual problems using the fourier transform.
- kortex 5y agoMy brain works the opposite. Equations give me something I can work with but feels like voodoo, and I only get operational knowledge once I can visualize it in some way.