ABSTRACT
The origin of the Fourier integral transformation can be traced to Fourier's celebrated work on the Analytical Theory of Heat, Théorie analytique de la chaleur, which appeared in 1822[66]. Joseph Fourier was a French physicist who taught at a local military school and later at the École Polytechnique. In 1798 he joined Napoleon in his invasion of Egypt and was appointed a secretary of the Institut d'Egypt which compiled the famous publication Description de l'Egypte. After he returned to France, he continued his scholarly pursuits and in 1807 he submitted a paper to the prestigious French Academy of Science on the problem of heat conduction. The paper was refereed by very prominent mathematicians such as Laplace, Lagrange and Legendre who rejected it for lack of rigor. Four years later, Fourier submitted a revised version of the paper, which was awarded a prize by the Academy. Nonetheless, the Academy still refused to publish it because some of Fourier's reasonings were described as unclear.
