Fourier Series and Absorption Questions?

[arianna1012]

Sorry if I am posting in the wrong place.

I'm really interested in the Fourier series, but I'm not an expert on it yet. I am very well aware yoy can do it with sound waves, but can you manipulate any other waves? What about light waves?

And for absorption, how can you measure the absorption of light/sound waves of a material? Or better yet, how can you measure the amount of penetration through a material of light/sound waves?

 

[mfb]

You can do a Fourier transformation on nearly (!) every function defined on the real axis, or even defined in a multidimensional space.
Visible light oscillates so fast that you cannot record it in the same way you can record sound, but with longer wavelengths (and therefore lower frequencies) this is possible.

And for absorption, how can you measure the absorption of light/sound waves of a material? Or better yet, how can you measure the amount of penetration through a material of light/sound waves?

Direct sound / light onto the material, measure the amount going through, do the measurement multiple times with variable thickness of the material.