Wavelets are a new approach used in the analysis of sounds and images.
For example, the wavelet model can provide a mathematical analog to a music score. This is similar to zooming in with a camera. First, you can see that the scene is one of shrubs in a garden, then you concentrate on one shrub and see that it bears berries, then, by zooming in on one branch, you find that this is a raspberry bush. In a practical application, the FBI uses wavelets for the compression of its vast library of fingerprint data. Daubechies earned a bachelor's degree and doctorate in physics from the Free University in Brussels.