"Fourier believed that his health would be improved by wrapping himself up in blankets, and in this state he tripped down the stairs in his house and killed himself."
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Fourier, Joseph (1768-1830) -- from Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography
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Fourier, Joseph (1768-1830) -- from Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography
But do you also know that Mr. Fourier suffered from heart disease, and that the Fourier transform is an important instrument for the analysis of electro-cardiograms ?
A lot of newer IR spectrophotometers use a Michelson interferometer with a computerized Fourier transform system to generate the spectrum.
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Older ones as well. The Nicolet 7199 (I used one for my thesis research) dates to the mid-1970s, and I don't think it was the first one. I don't know anyone currently using a dispersive instrument, FT-IR has come down so far in price and it's so easy to use that older methods have fallen by the wayside.
Smart bloke was Fourier though he should have known better to wear flip-flips when running downstairs!
Partial Differential Equation - couldn't get my around that when I tried to learn more about it in respect of the heating and cooling of astronomical mirrors.
Partial Differential Equation - couldn't get my around that when I tried to learn more about it in respect of the heating and cooling of astronomical mirrors.
haha, partial differentials are awesome! Gets real fun when you have functions and multiple orders of derivative within the same equations, some people would rather have a beer, not me!
(as there's no sarcasm syntax, this is sarcasm. In case you didn't guess, I came on here to get away from revision for exams and the heat equation)
(as there's no sarcasm syntax, this is sarcasm. In case you didn't guess, I came on here to get away from revision for exams and the heat equation)
Ouch, I remember my one and only PDE course. We spent 80% of the semester on existence proofs, which bored the hell out of me ("Of course the solution exists, the equation is for a physical system!"), then the last 20% learning that if you can't separate variables, you have to do an approximate or numerical solution. Well, thanks a lot, Prof, if you said that up front, I could have dropped the course and spent the time more usefully.
True. PDE drove me to a numerical analysis course given by a Livermore
researcher. That was when I started to realize that I was not going to be
a theoretical physicist.
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