I wish someone would write the definitive book on the Fast Fourier Transform so people wouldn’t give me a blank look as I tried to explain how important it was and what its invention says about innovation, Princeton, and the contingency of the new.

Not cheap but def covers those topics

I was thinking about something that was part explainer, part history, and part business. I’m sure there are interesting details in the archives of Princeton, IBM, and ARPA...

Made something :) what’s missing? fft-explained.vercel.app/

My guess is that there is archival material at IBM, Princeton and the ARPA that would offer interesting details...

I went digging…turns out the best archive isn't IBM, Princeton, or ARPA! It's the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, which holds BOTH Tukey's and Garwin's personal papers, and Garwin's finding aid explicitly documents him connecting Tukey and Cooley in 1963. Brb making updates