Ramble, Part 60: Good Vibrations

Joseph Fourier was more a physicist than a mathematician (though the lines between the disciplines were less clear in his day than in ours); his mathematical papers, even his masterpiece Analytic Theory of Heat, were less than rigorous, and many of his claims proved to be false as stated. Nonetheless, with appropriate qualifications and restrictions, they could be made true, and their consequences have been enormous. Many important modern technologies rest on his work; fields of study ranging from physics to linguistics have drawn upon his insights; and - most importantly for our purposes - he had considerable, if indirect, impact on the foundations of mathematics.

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