Lecture 13: Global Illumination & Path Tracing (35)
jnzhao3
It's so interesting that we can use abstract linear algebra ideas to represent these physical quantities. It reminds me of the relationship between operators and wavefunctions in quantum mechanics calculations. Incredibly cool to see how simple math concepts generalize in many different fields.
ShonenMind
@jnzhao3 absolutely! It's very interesting to see this seemingly pure-math topic in such an applied manner. I learned about linear operators when I took math 110, thinking that this would have virtually no application to real life. As it turns out, light and shading acts so complex, that instead of using single functions that turn values as input into values as output, they ALSO need operators that take functions as input and turn them into functions as output.
It's so interesting that we can use abstract linear algebra ideas to represent these physical quantities. It reminds me of the relationship between operators and wavefunctions in quantum mechanics calculations. Incredibly cool to see how simple math concepts generalize in many different fields.
@jnzhao3 absolutely! It's very interesting to see this seemingly pure-math topic in such an applied manner. I learned about linear operators when I took math 110, thinking that this would have virtually no application to real life. As it turns out, light and shading acts so complex, that instead of using single functions that turn values as input into values as output, they ALSO need operators that take functions as input and turn them into functions as output.