Jean Fourier 1768-1830

1768. Born at Auxerre, France on march 21st, the son of a tailor.

1776. Father died. Entered Auxerre Military College, run by Benedictines, after pressure by the Bishop of Auxerre.

1780. Reported as writing sermons for leading churchmen in Paris to give a their own.

1788. Entered the Abbey of St. Benöit as novice.

1789. Gave up ministry and returned to Auxerre college as professor of mathematics. Presented researches on numerical equations at Paris Academy.

1790. Joined the People's Party and made speeches and sermons on the liberty of the common man and the triumph of rationality.

1794. Given chair of Mathematics at Napoleons École Normale in Paris. Also taught at the Polytechnique.

1798. Accompanied Napoleon to Egypt as one of the 'Legion of Culture.' Made Governor of lower Egypt. Organised French munitions making and archaeological expeditions.

1802. Made Prefect of Grenoble Department at Isère as whom he modernised the region.

1808. Awarded a Baronecy.

1815. Imprisoned after Napoleon's escape from Elba due to Fourier's support for the Bourbons, freed soon after. Appointed director of the Bureau of Statistics.

1817. Elected to French Academy after the Bourbons, annoyed at Fourier's duplicity in returning to Napoleon, had blocked it the previous year.

1819. Became permanent secretary to the Academy.

1830. Died in Paris on May 16th of heart disease.

Mathematics

• Made great advances in boundary-value problems
• Devised the trigonometric expansion of functions called the 'Fourier Series.'
• Discovered an important theorem on the roots of algebraic equations.

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Jeremy Dittmer
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