Following the French Revolution, the physicist and mathematician Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) taught at the Ecole Normale Superieure and later succeeded Lagrange at the Ecole Polytechnique. He was promoted to administrative positions under Napoleon, but continued to pursue his scientific interests. From 1822 until his death he served as the permanent secretary for mathematical sciences at the Academie des Sciences. Thanks to his substantial contributions to the field, Fourier's name has passed as an adjective into the mathematical vocabulary of every major language. These selected works were edited by the mathematician Jean Gaston Darboux (1842-1917) and published in two volumes between 1888 and 1890. Volume 1 is given over entirely to the immortal Theorie analytique de la chaleur (1822), from which the world learnt about the heat equation and the series which bears Fourier's name.

Following the French Revolution, the physicist and mathematician Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) taught at the Ecole Normale Superieure and later succeeded Lagrange at the Ecole Polytechnique. He was promoted to administrative positions under Napoleon, but continued to pursue his scientific interests. From 1822 until his death he served as the permanent secretary for mathematical sciences at the Academie des Sciences. These selected works were edited by the mathematician Jean Gaston Darboux (1842-1917) and published in two volumes between 1888 and 1890. Volume 2 contains several extraordinary contributions: the first paper to address the question of why the earth's surface is warm (which we now call the greenhouse effect), the first paper to address the cooling of the earth's interior (still a major research topic) and the first paper on optimisation under linear constraints, along with the results on roots of polynomials which first made Fourier's reputation.

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.