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| | Biography of Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier |
 | | Baron Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier (March 21 1768-May 16, 1830), born in poor circumstances in Auxerre, introduced the idea that an arbitrary function, even one defined by different analytic expressions in adjacent segments of its range (such as a staircase waveform), could nevertheless be represented by a single analytic expression. |
 | | By 1807, despite official duties, Fourier had written down his theory of heat conduction, which depended on the essential idea of analyzing the temperature distribution into spatially sinusoidal components: but doubts expressed by Laplace and Lagrange hindered publication. |
 | | Fouriers days in provincial government then ended and he moved to Paris to enter a life of science and scientific administration, being elected to the Académie des Sciences in 1817, to the position of permanent secretary in 1823, and to the Académie Française in 1826. |
| www.swarthmore.edu /NatSci/echeeve1/Ref/Fourier/FourierBio.html |
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