YouTube’s ‘engineerguy’ is Bill Hammack who just (31 Oct 2014) published a new book on the machine entitled “Albert Michelson's Harmonic Analyzer: A Visual Tour of a Nineteenth Century Machine that Performs Fourier Analysis” which is available at Amazon and his website (<a href="http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier/" rel="nofollow">http://www.engineerguy.com/fourier/</a>) — Note: at first I thought this video was solely a means of getting people to buy his book, but if you go to his website he has the whole book available for free download and purchase (as well as some cool posters).<p>Those not able to see the video, the computer is Albert Michelson's (1852 - 1931) Harmonic Analyzer to perform Fourier Analysis, and is part one of a four part series (staggered upcoming release dates for next three installments). I do wish he'd have all the segments in the series uploaded or at least show a bit more of the mechanical operation as that seemed to be quite ingenious. The clips shown of the mechanical operation either seemed slowed down or altered/shot at an artsy angle which while visually appealing make it hard to appreciate "how it works" overall.
A software simulation of this machine could serve as a very nice visual aid for people that are mechanically inclined that try to understand Fourier Analysis. Nice project for a little web app.