Fourier Jean Baptiste

Fourier, Jean Baptiste (1768-1830), a French mathematician, was born at Auxerre, and educated at the military school there, becoming a teacher in it at eighteen. He then taught at Paris, and followed Napoleon to Egypt, where he did some political work, and wrote an introduction to the Description de I'Fgypte. In 1802 he drained some marshes in the department of Isere where he was prefect. In 1815 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences, and later was made life-secretary of it. Among his works were an Analytical Theory of Heat, a Theory of Equations, and Analysis of Determinate Equations, and a treatise upon Terrestrial Heat and that of planets.