Spinodal decomposition both complete one cycle per second—but they represent different frequencies in the Fourier transform. Hence, frequency no longer measures the number of cycles per unit time, but is closely related.) If A(β) is the amplitude of a Fourier component of wavelength λ and wavenumber β = 2π/λ the spatial variation in composition can be expressed by the Fourier integral: in which the coefficients are defined by the inverse relationship: Substituting, we obtain on equating coefficients: This is an ordinary differential equation that has the solution: in which "A(β)" is the initial amplitude of the Fourier component of wave wavenumber β
Parity of a permutation of formula_1 into disjoint cycles, which can be composed in any order because they commute. A cycle formula_49 involving formula_50 points can always be obtained by composing formula_51 transpositions (2-cycles): so call formula_51 the "size" of the cycle, and observe that, under this definition, transpositions are cycles of size 1. From a decomposition into formula_54 disjoint cycles we can obtain a decomposition of formula_1 into formula_56 transpositions, where formula_57 is the size of the th cycle. The number formula_58 is called the discriminant of formula_1, and can also be computed as if we take care to include the fixed points