Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (March 21, 1768 - May 16, 1830) was a French mathematician and physicist who is best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series.
He was born at Auxerre in the Yonne département of France, the son of a tailor, and was educated by the Benedictines. 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 revolution, and was rewarded by an appointment in 1795 in the Normal school, and subsequently by a chair in the Polytechnic school.
Fourier went with Napoleon on his Eastern expedition in 1798, and was made governor of Lower Egypt. 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 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 under General Menou in 1801, Fourier returned to France, and was made prefect of Isère, and it was while there that he made his experiments on the propagation of heat. He moved to Paris in 1816. In 1822 he published his Théorie analytique de la chaleur, in which he bases 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. In this work he claims that any functions of a variable, whether continuous or discontinuous, can be expanded in a series of sines of multiples of the variable - this result isn't correct at all. But the fact that some discontinuous functions are the sum of infinite series was a breakthrough. The question of determine when a function is the sum of its Fourier series has been fundamental for centuries. Lagrange had given particular cases of this (false) theorem, and had implied that the method was general, but he had not pursued the subject. Dirichlet was the first to give a satisfactory demonstration of it, with some restrictive conditions.
Descartes was born in LaHayer, France on March 31, 1596. Trained in Aristotelian school, he attended boarding school in a Jesuits-based boarding college at the age of 8 years old, going on to law school at the age of twenty two. His father placed increased focus on the importance of education, as he was a member of the provincial parliament of France. Descartes’ mother died while he was young and so he was raised by his grandmother and then sent to boarding school. Descartes schooling focused on theology and philosophy as well as science and mathematics, including the study of the metaphysical and geometry. He was first considered a mathematician and then philosopher by many, with his addition of his wo...
It was said that he was tutored by his cousin and one of his father’s law clerk. He did not get a real education until he traveled out the country with his father. When his father became the ambassador to France and also Netherlands, John Quincy accompanied him on the missions he took. While in Europe with his father he was able to attend Leiden University for a short period of time where he graduated in 1781.
He took his teaching duties very seriously, while he was preparing lectures for his charge on variety an of topics about science. The first scientific work dates were all from this period. It involves topics, which would continue to occupy him throughout his life. In 1571, he began publication of his track. It was intended to form a preliminary mathematical part of a major study on the Ptolemaic astronomical model. He continued to embrace the Ptolemaic (Parshall 1).
Descartes was born in 1596 in Touraine, France. His education consisted of attendance to a Jesuit school of La Fleche. He studied a liberal arts program that emphasized philosophy, the humanities, science, and math. He then went on to the University of Poitiers where he graduated in 1616 with a law degree. Descartes also served as a volunteer in several different armies to broaden his horizons.
This was the beginning of many awards in his experiments to come. He was elected to the Royal Society on May 29, 1756. This is probably one of the most influential factors in his work and this is one way that his work was seen by people all over Europe and other parts of the world. Members of the Royal Society had their scientific works published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. (DOSB,129)
John Locke was born in 1632 at Wrington, Somersetshire, England. He studied philosophy and the natural sciences at Oxford, and received his doctorate in medicine. Having entered into the graces of Lord Ashley, who later became the Earl of Shaftesbury, Locke held several political offices. Thus he had the opportunity to visit France, where he made the acquaintance of the most representative men of cultur...
recognized as a writer. He became one of the most famous and well paid French
Bonaparte was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica just as France conquered it. At age ten, Napoleon was sent to military school outside Paris. At sixteen, he graduated and became a lieutenant in the artillery. When the French revolution broke out, Napoleon sided with the new government. Along with the help of his army, he dissolved the revolutionary government and made himself emperor. Saying he was saving the Revolution, Napoleon established a new government that stressed equality. Through his prowess, Napoleon greatly enlarged the French Empire. Though he ran...
Descartes was born at La Haye (now called Descartes), and educated at the Jesuit College of La Flèche between 1606 and 1614. Descartes later claimed that his education gave him little of substance and that only mathematics had given him certain knowledge. In this lament he joins a chorus of seventeenth century philosophers including Bacon, Hobbes and Locke. In 1618 he went to Holland to serve in the army of Prince Maurice of Nassau, in traveled to Germany with that army. On the night of November 10, he had a series of dreams which he interpreted as signs that he would found a universal science. The most important influence on Descartes at this time was the mathematician Issac Beeckman, who stimulated Descartes by posing a number of problems and discussing issues in physics and mathematics with him. His first substantial work was the Regulae or Rules for the Direction of Mind written in 1628-9 but not published until 1701. This work shows Descartes interest in method which he shared with many sixteenth and seventeenth century scientists, mathematicians and philosophers.
Charles Perrault was born in 1628 and was of French descent. He was from a very wealthy family. His father was a lawyer, and his three brothers grew up to have successful careers as well. Perrault was able to attend the best schools, but preferred to be self-taught so he dropped out of
"We arrive at truth, not by reason only, but also by the heart"(1) said Blaise Pascal, one of the greatest minds of the 17th Century. The 17th Century was the time of the scientific revolution. During this period the main idea for everyone, was to question everything not to just listen to what is told. This caused a transformation in thought in both religious and scientific areas. Science allowed the questioning of the teachings of the old church. Scientists battled with ideas in math and physics, while philosophers battled with ideas of God. It was an intellectual revolution concerning the methods for determining humanity's place in the universe. Blaise Pascal was a physicist, a mathematician, and a man of God. He was a Renaissance man of the scientific revolution.
Comte was born in the south of France in a city called Montpellier on January 19, 1788. He was the eldest of four children. His father Louis-Auguste Comte was a tax official and his mother, Félicité-Rosalie Boyer was twelve years older than his father. His parents were both of Roman Catholic faith and royalists. He attended the Citadel of Montpellier and the University of Montpellier. Comte also attended the École Polytechnique. While attending the Citadel of Montpellier, he abandoned the beliefs of his parents and picked up the beliefs of a movement called republicanism. “From 1818 to 1824 he contributed to the publications of Saint-Simon, and the direction of much of Comte's future work may be attributed to this association...
If you have ever heard the phrase, “I think; therefore I am.” Then you might not know who said that famous quote. The author behind those famous words is none other than Rene Descartes. He was a 17th century philosopher, mathematician, and writer. As a mathematician, he is credited with being the creator of techniques for algebraic geometry. As a philosopher, he created views of the world that is still seen as fact today. Such as how the world is made of matter and some fundamental properties for matter. Descartes is also a co-creator of the law of refraction, which is used for rainbows. In his day, Descartes was an innovative mathematician who developed many theories and properties for math and science. He was a writer who had many works that explained his ideas. His most famous work was Meditations on First Philosophy. This book was mostly about his ideas about science, but he had books about mathematics too. Descartes’ Dream: The World According to Mathematics is a collection of essays talking about his views of algebra and geometry.
Rene Descartes was born on March 31, 1956, in Touraine, France. Although frail in health throughout his entire life, he studied fervently his entire life. He entered into Jesuit College at the age of eight, in which he studied the classics, logic, and philosophy. Descartes used a few more years in Paris contemplating mathematics with companions, for example, Mersenne. By then in time, a man that held that sort of training either joined the armed force or the congregation. Descartes decided to join the armed force of an aristocrat in 1617. While serving, Descartes went over a certain geometrical issue that had been acted like a test to the whole world to understand. After tackling the issue in just a couple of hours, he had met a man named Isaac Beeckman, a Dutch researcher. This would end up being a long fellowship. Since getting mindful of his scientific capabilities, the life of the armed force was inadmissible to Descartes. Notwithstanding, he remained a warrior upon the impact of his family and convention. In 1621, Descartes surrendered from the armed force and voyaged broadly for five years. Throughout this period, he ke...
In the 18th century, the French mathematician Jean Bastiste Joseph Fourier made an extraordinary discovery; as a result of his investigation into partial differential equations modeling vibration and heat propagation in bodies, he found out that every function could be represented by an infinite series of sines and cosines (the basic trigonometric functions). For example the sound signal produced by any musical instruments such as piano, drums, etc. could be decomposed into its trigonometric constituents which reveals the fundamental frequencies that are combined to produce a specific sound. This idea of decomposing signals lies at the heart of modern electronic music; such as a synthesizer combines sine and cosine tones to