World of Mathematics on Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier is best known for the trigonometric technique that we now know as the Fourier series. His life was not without excitement outside the mathematical world. During his life he was a political activist caught up in the French Revolution, imprisoned on two separate occasions, a campaigner with Napoleon, and a monarchist!
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier was born in the French town of Auxerre in 1768, the twelfth of fifteen children. After showing an initial aptitude for mathematics at the Ecole Royale Militaire Fourier's life changed direction in 1787. At this time he entered a Benedictine Abbey at St. Benoit-sur-Loire to train to become a priest. He still loved mathematics and he was unsure if he was making the right decision. Fourier submitted a paper in algebra to Montucla in Paris and held a long-running correspondence with Professor Bonard of Auxerre. Fourier subsequently left St. Benoit in 1789 without taking his final vows. After reading a paper on algebra at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris Fourier became a teacher in Auxerre. Fourier was caught up in the French Revolution, and he even went to prison expecting to be guillotined. At the end of the revolution Fourier was released and he returned to Paris to undertake formal teacher training, where he was taught by Joseph-Louis Lagrange, Pierre-Simon Laplace, and Gaspard Monge.
He taught in Paris from 1795 to 1798, eventually replacing Lagrange in the chair of analysis and mechanics. It was during this period that he was briefly imprisoned again due to his earlier political views. When he left, it was to join Napoleon I in Egypt as scientific adviser. Whilst in Egypt Fourier was one of the founders of the Cairo Institute where he was one of the members of the mathematics division. In 1802, on his return to France (after the collapse of the French occupation of Egypt), Fourier published extensively on Egyptian antiquities, and he was the Prefect of the Department of Isere. This administrative position in Grenoble took Fourier away from his beloved research; but as it was a direct request from Napoleon I he could not refuse. In 1810 Fourier published The Description of Egypt, which was extensively rewritten by Napoleon (the second edition removed all references to Napoleon). Much to Fourier's delight he found he was able to continue mathematical research, and in 1807 he published On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies. This was the first appearance of a trigonometric series that we now know as the Fourier series. This publication won the Paris Institutes mathematics prize in 1811. In 1816 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences and in 1827 the French Academy. In 1822 Fourier was elected to the position of Secretary to the mathematical section of the Academy of Sciences. In the same year the Academy published The Analytical Theory of Heat. Fourier was created a Baron by Napoleon in 1808. Fourier eventually died in Paris in 1830 at the age of 62.
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