Joseph Fourier

Fourier developed aneurism of the heart while he was in Egypt. Later in Paris he began to suffer from frequent suffocations. The malady was further aggravated when on the 4th of May 1830 he had a fall while climbing down the stairs. After suffering for around twelve days he died in bed on 16 May.

Fourier was buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. In recognition of his work on Egypt, his tomb was decorated with Egyptian motif. Later, his name was inscribed on the North-East side of the Eiffel Tower.

In mathematics, ‘Fourier's theorem’, ‘Fourier–Motzkin elimination’, ‘Fourier algebra’ and ‘Fourier division’ still carry his legacy. Besides, there are ‘Fourier's law of heat conduction’, ‘Fourier number’, ‘Fourier optics’ and ‘Fourier transform spectroscopy’ that remind us of his immense contribution to physics and engineering.

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier was born on 21 March 1768 in Auxerre, now the capital of Yonne department, France. His father, a tailor by profession, married his mother after the death of his first wife. Joseph was born ninth of his parents’ twelve children. He also had three siblings from his father’s previous marriage.

Joseph began his education at Pallais's school, run by the music master from the cathedral at Auxerre. By the age of ten, he lost both his parents. In spite of that, he showed great promise and was duly recommended to the Bishop of Auxerre.

In 1780, he entered École Royale Militaire of Auxerre, a military school, run by the Benedictine Order of the Convent of St. Mark on the bishop’s recommendation. Initially, he showed great talent in literature but by 1781, he developed a keen interest in mathematics.

It is said that he saved wax from the candle ends so that he could study at night. Thus working relentlessly, he completed the six volumes of Bézout's Cours de mathématiques by 1782. The following year, he received the first prize for his study of Bossut's Mécanique en général.

In 1787, after passing out from school, he entered the Benedictine abbey of St Benoit-sur-Loire with the intention of becoming a priest. However, he was not sure if he actually wanted to become a priest.

Joseph Fourier began his career in 1790 as a teacher of mathematics at his alma mater École Royale Militaire of Auxerre. Sometime now, he slowly became involved in politics and began to dream of a “free government exempt from kings and priests”.

In 1793, he joined the local Revolutionary Committee; but when the Reign of Terror started in September all over France, he tried to disassociate himself from it, but could not. He was sent to Orléans, where he defended one faction against the other.

Thereafter, he returned to Auxerre and continued teaching, not realizing that he had made many enemies. In July 1794, he was arrested and it was certain that he would undergo the guillotine.

But on 28 July, 1794, Maximilien Robespierre, who was best known for his defense of the Reign of Terror, was himself guillotined and with that political environment of the country began to change. Soon Fourier was set free.

Later in 1794, Fourier was nominated for admission into the École Normale, a teachers’ training institute, which was to be opened in January 1795. Fourier joined the first batch of students and received lessons from eminent teachers like Lagrange, Laplace and Monge.

Joseph Fourier is best remembered for his work on the flow of heat. Although he first submitted the paper in 1810, but due to objections raised by many well-known scholars, it could not be published. However, he kept working on it and in 1822 published it as ‘Théorieanalytique de la chaleur’.

In his paper, he expressed the conduction of heat in two-dimensional objects in terms of the differential equations, basing his reasoning on Newton’s law of cooling. The work later became the basis of another of his well-known work, ‘Fourier series’.

Although he never used the term, Fourier was the first person to work on ‘greenhouse effect’. In early 1820s, he concluded that the earth should have been colder had it been heated only by radiation. In 1827, he suggested that the Earth's atmosphere might act as an insulator and retain the heat.