Retrospective
| July 2004: Amara's Wavelet Page Turns Nine Years Old |
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In July 1995, my wavelet pages were officially released. The page of links to books, papers, tutorials, software, research groups, and people emerged naturally from teaching myself about wavelets as I performed a wavelet software contract in 1994-1995. From the bottom-up, I learned wavelet algorithm details. From the top-down, I wrote a paper: "Introduction to Wavelets". The collection of the Internet resources I met as I performed these tasks emerged from the middle as "Amara's Wavelet Page".
Amara's Wavelet Page then grew naturally as a site for beginners to learn about wavelets. My "Introduction to Wavelets" paper was my way of understanding with minimal math the main wavelet ideas. When the journal: IEEE Computational Sciences and Engineering published it in 1995, they gave me permission to place an HTML and postscript version of the paper at Amara's Wavelet Page. Since then, more people (>100,000) have downloaded the paper than many times the circulation number of journal. The Internet is really an incredible medium.
On this anniversary, I cannot help but note that these pages were born several of my lifetimes ago. In my professional life, they endured the transition from scientific programmer to professional astronomer. The pages endured the initiation of the World Wide Web from starry expectations, through jaded disappointments into the WWW standard toaster-oven-appliance tool, now present in many people's homes. I rode along with these phase changes, at one point becoming so distressed from the Internet personalities that I encountered, that I wiped clean my web site and took a nap from the WWW for a few months.
The phase changes of the WWW were not the only changes that my wavelet pages have endured. Adventures abound. In 1996, the Introduction to Wavelets paper was plagiarized by an engineering graduate student, whose lawyer attempted to convince IEEE, that Amara and his client, 'like Leibnitz and Newton with the invention of the calculus invented the paper at the same time' (he said). My wavelet pages have endured three country changes, a disabling repetitive strain injury, a large money debt, a divorce and later huge heartbreak, and an astrophysics PhD and postdoc experiences. Now lifetimes later, Amara the person, has emerged changed and better (she thinks) with the wavelet pages as a faint reflection.
Sometimes others notice the niche that these wavelet pages serve. Since the later 1990s, digital signal processing online and print books and trade magazines have pointed their readers to my wavelet pages as a good introduction. A peak was reached in 2004, however, when the creme of the creme of the computer / technology magazines, c't, gave a link to my wavelet pages for their readers to learn more. I suppose I am somebody now, or, more likely, my name will be forever linked to the word "wavelet", no matter what Nobel Prizes I will receive in astrophysics ;-).
I hope you've enjoyed my nine-year romp.
Amara Graps
Wavelet Page
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© Copyright Amara Graps, 2002-4. |