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I have noticed that WolframAlpha's definition of the Fourier Transform is different than the one in my book of formulas. In my book the Fourier transform of $f(t)$ is defined as: $$\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} f(t)e^{- i \omega t}dt$$ The inverse transform is defined as: $$\frac{1}{2 \pi}\int_{-\infty}^{\infty} F(\omega)e^{i \omega t}d\omega$$ Using WolframAlpha with a simple case is shown here. This looks more like the inverse Fourier transform, except we divide by $\sqrt{2 \pi}$ instead of $2 \pi$.

Trying this simple case I could get the same answer as in my table of fourier transforms by multiplying WolframAlpha's answer with $\sqrt{2 \pi}$.

Will I generally get the right result by taking WolframAlphas answer and multiplying by $\sqrt{2 \pi}$? (Since WolframAlpha also integrates in the other direction). Is there a way to get the right (according to definiton above) answer right away using WolframAlpha?

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    Welcome to Mathematica StackExchange. There are many definitions of how you scale Fourier transforms. Look up FourierParameters to see options for scaling. I have put some notes on numerical Fourier transforms here that might help. – Hugh Mar 04 '20 at 09:47
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    Particularly, this one: https://mathematica.stackexchange.com/a/118092/1871 – xzczd Mar 04 '20 at 09:50
  • The part I'm still wondering about: Does the direction of the integral never matter? –  Mar 04 '20 at 10:19
  • What do you mean by direction? Please expand. – Hugh Mar 04 '20 at 16:37

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