Joseph Fourier

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For the French socialist philosopher, see Charles Fourier.

Joseph Fourier

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier

Born

21 March 1768
Auxerre, Burgundy, Kingdom of France (now
in Yonne, France)

Died

16 May 1830 (aged 62)

Paris, Kingdom of France

Residence

France

Nationality

French

Fields

Mathematician, physicist,historian

Institutions

cole Normale
cole Polytechnique

Alma mater

cole Normale

Doctoral

Joseph-Louis Lagrange

advisor

Doctoral

Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet

students

Giovanni Plana
Claude-Louis Navier

Known for

Fourier series
Fourier transform
Fourier's law of conduction

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (/frie, -ir/;[1] French: [fuje]; 21 March 1768 16 May 1830)
was a French mathematician and physicist born inAuxerre and best known for initiating the
investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations.
The Fourier transform and Fourier's Law are also named in his honour. Fourier is also generally
credited with the discovery of the greenhouse effect.[2]
Contents
[hide]

1 Biography

2 The Analytic Theory of Heat

3 Determinate equations

4 Discovery of the greenhouse effect

5 Works

6 See also

7 References

8 Further reading

9 External links

Biography[edit]
Fourier was born at Auxerre (now in the Yonne dpartement of France), the son of a tailor. He
was orphaned at age nine. Fourier was recommended to theBishop of Auxerre, and through this
introduction, he was educated by theBenedictine Order of the Convent of St. Mark. The commissions
in the scientific corps of the army were reserved for those of good birth, and being thus ineligible, he
accepted a military lectureship on mathematics. He took a prominent part in his own district in
promoting the French Revolution, serving on the local Revolutionary Committee. He was imprisoned
briefly during theTerror but in 1795 was appointed to the cole Normale Suprieure, and
subsequently succeeded Joseph-Louis Lagrange at the cole Polytechnique.
Fourier accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte on his Egyptian expedition in 1798, as scientific adviser,
and was appointed secretary of the Institut d'gypte. Cut off from France by the English fleet, he
organized the workshops on which the French army had to rely for their munitions of war. He also
contributed several mathematical papers to the Egyptian Institute (also called the Cairo Institute)
which Napoleon founded at Cairo, with a view of weakening English influence in the East. After the
British victories and the capitulation of the French underGeneral Menou in 1801, Fourier returned to
France.

1820 watercolor caricatures of French mathematicians Adrien-Marie Legendre (left) and Joseph Fourier (right)
by French artistJulien-Leopold Boilly, watercolor portrait numbers 29 and 30 of Album de 73 Portraits-Charge
Aquarelles des Membres de IInstitute.[3]

In 1801,[4] Napoleon appointed Fourier Prefect (Governor) of the Department of Isre in Grenoble,
where he oversaw road construction and other projects. However, Fourier had previously returned
home from the Napoleon expedition to Egypt to resume his academic post as professor at cole
Polytechniquewhen Napoleon decided otherwise in his remark
... the Prefect of the Department of Isre having recently died, I would like to express my confidence
in citizen Fourier by appointing him to this place.[4]
Hence being faithful to Napoleon, he took the office of Prefect.[4] It was while at Grenoble that he
began to experiment on the propagation of heat. He presented his paper On the Propagation of
Heat in Solid Bodies to the Paris Institute on December 21, 1807. He also contributed to the
monumentalDescription de l'gypte.[5]
Fourier moved to England in 1816. Later, he returned to France, and in 1822 succeeded Jean
Baptiste Joseph Delambre as Permanent Secretary of theFrench Academy of Sciences. In 1830, he
was elected a foreign member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
In 1830, his diminished health began to take its toll:

Fourier had already experienced, in Egypt and Grenoble, some attacks of aneurism of the heart. At
Paris, it was impossible to be mistaken with respect to the primary cause of the frequent suffocations
which he experienced. A fall, however, which he sustained on the 4th of May 1830, while descending
a flight of stairs, aggravated the malady to an extent beyond what could have been ever feared. [6]
Shortly after this event, he died in his bed on 16 May 1830.
Fourier was buried in the Pre Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, a tomb decorated with an Egyptian motif
to reflect his position as secretary of the Cairo Institute, and his collation of Description de l'gypte.
His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.
A bronze statue was erected in Auxerre in 1849, and melted down for armaments during World War
II.[7]

The Analytic Theory of Heat[edit]

In 1822 Fourier published his work on heat flow in Thorie analytique de la chaleur (The Analytic
Theory of Heat),[8] in which he based his reasoning on Newton's law of cooling, namely, that the flow
of heat between two adjacent molecules is proportional to the extremely small difference of their
temperatures. This book was translated,[9] with editorial 'corrections',[10] into English 56 years later by
Freeman (1878).[11] The book was also edited, with many editorial corrections, by Darboux and
republished in French in 1888.[10]

Sketch of Fourier, circa 1820.

There were three important contributions in this work, one purely mathematical, two essentially
physical. In mathematics, Fourier claimed that any function of a variable, whether continuous or
discontinuous, can be expanded in a series of sines of multiples of the variable. Though this result is
not correct, Fourier's observation that some discontinuous functions are the sum of infinite series
was a breakthrough. The question of determining when a Fourier series converges has been
fundamental for centuries.Joseph-Louis Lagrange had given particular cases of this (false) theorem,
and had implied that the method was general, but he had not pursued the subject. Peter Gustav
Lejeune Dirichlet was the first to give a satisfactory demonstration of it with some restrictive
conditions. This work provides the foundation for what is today known as theFourier transform.
One physical contribution in the book was the concept of dimensional homogeneity in equations; i.e.
an equation can be formally correct only if the dimensions match on either side of the equality;
Fourier made important contributions to dimensional analysis.[12] The other physical contribution was
Fourier's proposal of his partial differential equation for conductive diffusion of heat. This equation is
now taught to every student of mathematical physics.

Determinate equations[edit]
Fourier left an unfinished work on determinate equations which was edited by Claude-Louis
Navier and published in 1831. This work contains much original matter in particular, there is a
demonstration of Fourier's theorem on the position of the roots of an algebraic equation. JosephLouis Lagrange had shown how the roots of an algebraic equation might be separated by means of
another equation whose roots were the squares of the differences of the roots of the original
equation. Franois Budan, in 1807 and 1811, had enunciated the theorem generally known by the
name of Fourier, but the demonstration was not altogether satisfactory. Fourier's proof [13] is the same
as that usually given in textbooks on the theory of equations. The final solution of the problem was
given in 1829 by Jacques Charles Franois Sturm.

Discovery of the greenhouse effect[edit]

In the 1820s Fourier calculated that an object the size of the Earth, and at its distance from the Sun,
should be considerably colder than the planet actually is if warmed by only the effects of incoming
solar radiation. He examined various possible sources of the additional observed heat in articles
published in 1824[14] and 1827.[15] While he ultimately suggested that interstellar radiation might be
responsible for a large portion of the additional warmth, Fourier's consideration of the possibility that
the Earth's atmosphere might act as an insulator of some kind is widely recognized as the first
proposal of what is now known as the greenhouse effect.[16]

Bust of Fourier in Grenoble

In his articles, Fourier referred to an experiment by de Saussure, who lined a vase with blackened
cork. Into the cork, he inserted several panes of transparent glass, separated by intervals of air.
Midday sunlight was allowed to enter at the top of the vase through the glass panes. The
temperature became more elevated in the more interior compartments of this device. Fourier
concluded that gases in the atmosphere could form a stable barrier like the glass panes. [17] This
conclusion may have contributed to the later use of the metaphor of the 'greenhouse effect' to refer
to the processes that determine atmospheric temperatures.[18] Fourier noted that the actual
mechanisms that determine the temperatures of the atmosphere includedconvection, which was not
present in de Saussure's experimental device.

Fourier's grave, Pre Lachaise Cemetery

Works[edit]

Fourier, Joseph (1822). Thorie analytique de la chaleur. Paris: Firmin Didot Pre et Fils.

Fourier, Joseph (1824). Annales de chimie et de physique 27. Paris: Annals of Chemistry
and Physics. pp. 236281.

Fourier, Joseph (1827). Mmoire sur la temprature du globe terrestre et des espaces
plantaires 7. Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Institut de France. pp. 569
604.

Fourier, Joseph (1827). Mmoire sur la distinction des racines imaginaires, et sur
l'application des thormes d'analyse algbrique aux quations transcendantes qui dpendent
de la thorie de la chaleur 7. Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Institut de
France. pp. 605624.

Fourier, Joseph (1827). Analyse des quations dtermines 10. Firmin Didot frres. pp. 119
146.

Fourier, Joseph (1827). Remarques gnrales sur l'application du principe de l'analyse

algbrique aux quations transcendantes 10. Paris: Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences
of the Institut de France. pp. 119146.

Fourier, Joseph (1833). Mmoire d'analyse sur le mouvement de la chaleur dans les
fluides 12. Paris: Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of the Institut de France. pp. 507
530.

Fourier, Joseph (1821). Rapport sur les tontines 5. Paris: Memoirs of the Royal Academy of
Sciences of the Institut de France. pp. 2643.

See also[edit]

Fourier analysis[19]

Fourier number

FourierDeligne transform

Fourier's Law

Heat equation

References[edit]
1.

Jump up^ "Fourier". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.

2.

Jump up^ Cowie, J. (2007). Climate Change: Biological and Human Aspects. Cambridge
University Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-521-69619-7.

3.

Jump up^ Boilly, Julien-Leopold. (1820). Album de 73 Portraits-Charge Aquarelles des

Membres de IInstitute (watercolor portrait#29). Biliotheque de lInstitut de France.

4.

^ Jump up to:a b c "Jean-Baptiste Fourier". Retrieved 4 April 2012.

5.

Jump up^ Nowlan, Robert. A Chronicle of Mathematical People(PDF).

6.

Jump up^ Arago, Franois (1857). Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men.

7.

Jump up^ A subscription has been launched to erect a new one.

8.

Jump up^ Fourier, Joseph (1822). Thorie analytique de la chaleur(in French). Paris: Firmin
Didot Pre et Fils. OCLC 2688081.

9.

Jump up^ Freeman, A. (1878). The Analytical Theory of Heat, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge UK, cited by Truesdell, C.A. (1980), The Tragicomical History of Thermodynamics, 1822
1854, Springer, New York, ISBN 0-387-90403-4, page 52.

10.

^ Jump up to:a b Truesdell, C.A. (1980). The Tragicomical History of Thermodynamics, 1822
1854, Springer, New York, ISBN 0-387-90403-4, page 52.

11.

Jump up^ Gonzalez, Rafael; Woods, Richard E. (2010). Digital Image Processing (Third ed.).
Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 200. ISBN 978-0-13-234563-7.

12.

Jump up^ Mason, Stephen F.: A History of the Sciences (Simon & Schuster, 1962), p. 169.

13.

Jump up^ Fourier, Jean Baptiste Joseph (1820). "Sur l'usage du thorme de Descartes
dans la recherche des limites des racines" (PDF). Bulletin des Sciences, par la Socit Philomatique
de Paris: 156165.

14.

Jump up^ Fourier J (1824). "Remarques Gnrales Sur Les Tempratures Du Globe
Terrestre Et Des Espaces Plantaires". Annales de Chimie et de Physique 27: 13667.

15.

Jump up^ Fourier J (1827). "Mmoire Sur Les Tempratures Du Globe Terrestre Et Des
Espaces Plantaires". Mmoires de l'Acadmie Royale des Sciences 7: 569604.

16.

Jump up^ Weart, S. (2008). The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect. Retrieved on 27 May
2008

17.

Jump up^ Translation by W M Connolley of: Fourier 1827: MEMOIRE sur les temperatures
du globe terrestre et des espaces planetaires

18.

Jump up^ Osman, Jheni (2011), 100 Ideas that Changed the World, Random House,
p. 65, ISBN 9781446417485, [Fourier] didn't call his discovery the greenhouse effect but future
scientists named it that after an experiment by [de Saussure] which influenced Fourier's work.

19.

Jump up^ Coppel, William A. (1969). "J.B. Fourier - on the occasion of his two hundredth
birthday". Amer. Math. Monthly 76: 468483. doi:10.2307/2316953.

Further reading[edit]

Initial text from the public domain Rouse History of Mathematics

Fourier, Joseph. (1822). Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur. Firmin Didot (reissued

by Cambridge University Press, 2009;ISBN 978-1-108-00180-9)

Fourier, Joseph. (1878). The Analytical Theory of Heat. Cambridge University Press
(reissued by Cambridge University Press, 2009; ISBN 978-1-108-00178-6)

Fourier, J.-B.-J. (1824). Mmoires de l'Acadmie Royale des Sciences de l'Institut de

France VII. 570604 (Mmoire sur Les Temperatures du Globe Terrestre et Des Espaces
Planetaires greenhouse effect essay published in 1827)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men by Franois

Arago

Fourier, J. loge historique de Sir William Herschel, prononc dans la sance publique de
l'Acadmie royale des sciences le 7 Juin, 1824. Historie de l'Acadmie Royale des Sciences de
l'Institut de France, tome vi., anne 1823, p. lxi.[Pg 227]

External links[edit]
Wikisource has the text of
a 1906 New International
Encyclopedia article
aboutJoseph Fourier.
Wikiquote has quotations
related to: Joseph Fourier

O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Joseph Fourier", MacTutor History of
Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.

Fourier, J. B. J., 1824, Remarques Gnrales Sur Les Tempratures Du Globe Terrestre Et
Des Espaces Plantaires., in Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Vol. 27, pp. 136167
translation by Burgess (1837).

Fourier 1827: MEMOIRE sur les tempratures du globe terrestre et des espaces plantaires

Universit Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France

Joseph Fourier and the Vuvuzela on MathsBank.co.uk