Three tales of elegant mathematics in seismic-imaging geophysics: A tribute to Sven Treitel

In the earliest days of geophysical digital signal processing, a “mathematical proof”-inspired style of algorithm development was more common than it is today. Consider, for example, all the beautiful mathematics underpinning the early work in prediction-error-filter deconvolution. In celebration of Sven Treitel’s lasting legacy from those early days of formal mathematics driving signal-processing innovations, we revisit three times in our own early careers that elegant math led us to unexpected insights: 1) 3D shearwave anisotropy, 2) extrapolation operator stability analysis, and 3) vector infidelity correction.