Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768–1830), a French mathematician, first presented the series and transform that bear his name. Fourier’s results were not enthusiastically received by the scientific world. He could not even get his work published as a paper.

Born in Auxerre, France, Fourier was orphaned at age 8. He attended a local military college run by Benedictine monks, where he demonstrated great proficiency in mathematics. Like most of his contemporaries, Fourier was swept into the politics of the French Revolution. He played an important role in Napoleon’s expeditions to Egypt in the later 1790s. Due to his political involvement, he narrowly escaped death twice.

Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) inventor of the telephone, was a Scottish- American scientist.

Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, a son of Alexander Melville Bell, a wellknown speech teacher. Alexander the younger also became a speech teacher after graduating from the University of Edinburgh and the University of London. In 1866 he became interested in transmitting speech electrically. After his older brother died of tuberculosis, his father decided to move to Canada. Alexander was asked to come to Boston to work at the School for the Deaf. There he met Thomas A. Watson, who became his assistant in his electromagnetic transmitter experiment. On March 10, 1876, Alexander sent the famous first telephone message: "Watson, come here I want you." The bel, the logarithmic unit introduced in Chapter 14, is named in his honor.