"FOURIER, (JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH). - TOWARDS THE ANALYTICAL THEORY OF HEAT - FIRST GERMAN EDITION.
Reference : 44820
(1824)
Leipzig, Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1824. Without wrappers as issued in ""Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Hrsg.von Poggendorff"", Bd. 2, Jahrgang 1824, Zwölftes Stück. Pp. 345-448 (entire issue offered). Fourier's paper: pp. 359-402.
First German edition (in the same year as the French "" Résumé théorique des Propriétés de la chaleur rayonnante"") of this importent paper which gives an analytical account of surface-emissions and absorption based on the principle of equilibrium of temperature, forecasting the more elaborated theories which he published in his famous work ""La Therorie analytique de la chaleur. 1822"". His analytical mathematical method, that any continous function can be represented as a sum of sine and cosine curves, is here applied to physical problems f.i. his treatment of the warming (and cooling) of the earth and terrestrial temperatures. The theory of terrestrial temperatures played a central role in Fourier's mathematical physics.