The document discusses the Fourier transform and the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. It begins by introducing the Fourier theorem which expresses periodic functions as sums of sinusoids. It then describes how the FFT provides a fast way to convert between the time and frequency domains, by exploiting properties of roots of unity. The key ideas of the FFT algorithm are to divide the polynomial into even and odd terms, and then evaluate them at root of unity values in order to recursively reduce the number of computations from O(N2) to O(NlogN).
Related topics: