A Graphical Teaching Aid to Illustrate Fourier Harmonics
Gene Harding, Christopher Long · 2007
For many students, the subject of Fourier series harmonics is a new application of the principle of superposition and their first foray into the domain view of electronic signals. It can be a difficult journey for some, as they try to comprehend how sine waves can be added together to create waveforms like square and triangle waves. Likewise, the conceptual link between time and frequency domains can be hard to imagine. Good visualization tools can assist the learning process and improve understanding of the math used to define the Fourier series. This project came about because the authors could not find a teaching aid to illustrate either concept. The first goal was to address the problem by creating a pair of animated graphical tools to illustrate the basic ideas and facilitate student understanding. The second goal was to share these tools with others who might find them useful.