A refinement of → Fourier analysis which enables to
simplify the description of a
complicated function in terms of a small number of coefficients.
The formal history of wavelet theory began in the early 1980s when Jean Morlet, a French
geophysicist, introduced the concept of wavelet and studied wavelet transform as
a new tool for scientific signal analysis. In 1984, his
collaboration with Alex Grossmann yielded a detailed mathematical study of the
continuous wavelet transforms and their various applications.
Although similar results had already been obtained 20-50 years earlier by
several other researchers, the rediscovery of the old concepts provided a new
method for decomposing functions.
See also: → wavelet; → theory.
