WAVELETS

Our minds perceive colors and sounds by analyzing the regular rhythms of light and sound waves. Turbulent motion, such as the eddies and swirls of a fast flowing river, is much harder to understand. The wavelet transform is a new technique from signal processing. It can be used to decompose the chaos of turbulent flow into a superposition of localized more coherent motions on different scales, much as the sound of an orchestra can be broken down into the notation of musical notes and durations.

Marie Farge and her collaborators are pioneers in the application of wavelet analysis to the study of turbulence in two and three dimensions.