Joseph Fourier

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768 to 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist born in Auxerre, best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series, which developed into Fourier analysis and harmonic analysis, and for applying them to heat transfer and vibrations. The Fourier transform and Fourier's law of conduction are named in his honour, and he is generally credited with discovering the greenhouse effect. Orphaned at nine, he was educated by Benedictines, joined the Revolution locally, was appointed to the Ecole Normale in 1795 and succeeded Joseph-Louis Lagrange at the Ecole Polytechnique. He served as scientific adviser to Napoleon's Egyptian expedition of 1798, later became Prefect of Isere at Grenoble, where he began his experiments on the propagation of heat, and in 1822 published his treatise Theorie analytique de la chaleur and became Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. In computing his name is attached to the discrete Fourier transform and the fast algorithms for it, and to the 1826 elimination method for linear inequalities that now bears his name with Theodore Motzkin.