  An effective means to approximate an analytic, nonperiodic function on a
bounded interval is by using a Fourier series on a larger domain. When
constructed appropriately, this so-called Fourier extension is known to
converge geometrically fast in the truncation parameter. Unfortunately,
computing a Fourier extension requires solving an ill-conditioned linear
system, and hence one might expect such rapid convergence to be destroyed when
carrying out computations in finite precision. The purpose of this paper is to
show that this is not the case. Specifically, we show that Fourier extensions
are actually numerically stable when implemented in finite arithmetic, and
achieve a convergence rate that is at least superalgebraic. Thus, in this
instance, ill-conditioning of the linear system does not prohibit a good
approximation.
  In the second part of this paper we consider the issue of computing Fourier
extensions from equispaced data. A result of Platte, Trefethen & Kuijlaars
states that no method for this problem can be both numerically stable and
exponentially convergent. We explain how Fourier extensions relate to this
theoretical barrier, and demonstrate that they are particularly well suited for
this problem: namely, they obtain at least superalgebraic convergence in a
numerically stable manner.
