Digital Signal Processing: A Practical Guide for Engineers and Scientists

CHAPTER 31

The Complex Fourier Transform

Although complex numbers are fundamentally disconnected from our reality, they can be used to solve science and engineering problems in two ways. First, the parameters from a real-world problem can be substituted into a complex form, as presented in the last chapter. The second method is much more elegant and powerful, a way of making the complex numbers mathematically equivalent to the physical problem. This approach leads to the complex Fourier transform, a more sophisticated version of the real Fourier transform discussed in Chapter 8. The complex Fourier transform is important in itself, but also as a stepping stone to more powerful complex techniques, such as the Laplace and z-transforms. These ...