Discrete Fourier Transform of Real Sequence

Motivation:

Consider a finite duration signal g (t ) of duration T sampled at a uniform rate t s such

that
T  Nt s where N is an integer N  0
Then the Fourier transform of signal is given by
T
G( f )   g (t ) e  j 2 ft dt
0
If we now evaluate the above integral by trapezoidal rule of integration after padding
two zeros at the extremity on either side [signal is zero there infact], we obtain the
following expressions.
N 1
G ( f )  t s  g (nt s )e  j 2 fnts (1)
n 0
The inverse DFT (IDFT) which is used to reconstruct
the signal is given by:


 G( f ) e
j 2 ft
g (t )  df (2)
 Fig (1)

If, from equation (1) we could compute complete frequency spectrum i.e.
G ( f ),    f   then (2) would imply that we can obtain g (t )0  t  T . The fallacy
in the above statement is quite obvious as we have only finite samples and the curve
connecting any 2-samples can be defined plausibly in infinitely many ways (see fig (2)).
This suggests that from (1), we should be able to derive only limited amount of frequency
domain information.
Since, we have N-data points [real] and G ( f ) a complex number contains both
magnitude and phase angle information in the frequency domain (2-units of information),
N
it is reasonable to expect that we should be in a position to predict atmost
2
independent transforms G ( f ) for original signal.

1 1 f
Now, let f0    s
T Nt s N
m mf
and f  mf 0   s (3)
Nt s N
then substituting (3) in (1), we get
N 1 m
mf s  j 2 nts
G( )  t s  g (nt s ) e Nt s
3- different fits to the curve
N n 0
Fig (2)