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Does the use of the word signal spawn from its application in communications theory? I've never found it strange using the word signal but it might be because of my EE background. Frequency domain and time domain never irked me either :/

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"Signal" has always bugged me because it has the connotation of a function of time, whereas historically the Fourier series were first used to represent functions of space.

But the point is that the transform shows you two representations, one time-based, the other frequency-based, of the same signal.

And notice that time is a component in each of these.

It doesn't need to be time- and frequency- based. For example in quantum mechanics you transform from position to momentum space. I think the complaint was that the word "signal" excludes this later case while "function" is more general.

EE here, same for me. Although, it is true that the first two classes of my signal theory course consisted entirely of restating high school results, with "signal" replaced for "function"...

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