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THE VIDEO SHELF · fast fourier transform

The Most Underrated Algorithm

Veritasium tells the story of the Fast Fourier Transform, from its use in detecting nuclear tests to Cold War politics, and how it could have changed the arms race. It includes a short, intuitive explanation of what the Fourier transform does.

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Why HN readers recommended it

HN points people to it as the explanation that finally made Fourier transforms and the FFT click, with a good historical story.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel
Veritasium
Topic
fast fourier transform
Format
explainer
Level
general
HN recommenders in dataset
5
HN mentions in dataset
9
Recommendation years in dataset
2022–2024

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

  • The 2-minute brute-force explanation of Fourier transforms in a recent Veritasium video was my "aha!" moment. [VIDEO]

    kevlened on Hacker News · 2022-11
    In Demystifying Fourier analysis

  • That video did the same for me. I also like the reducible video for Fast Fourier Transforms as well as the Veratasium piece that shares some fun history. Reducible - FFTs the most ingenious algorithm ever [LINK] Veritasium - The Most Important Algorithm of All …

    kippinitreal on Hacker News · 2023-01
    In Ask HN: Concepts that clicked only years after you first encountered them?

  • If you have 26 minutes spare, Veritaserum's video [0] on the history of FTs and FFTs is quite good. Effectively, a Fourier Transform can turn a signal into its underlying frequencies using a neat property of maths. For a piece of music, say, you could …

    yunruse on Hacker News · 2022-11
    In I over-engineered a Fast Fourier Transform for Arduino

Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.

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