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Does anyone know a good book or article on the History of the Fourier transform? It's first appearance (of the transform) and use in particular? Or at least some source with some historical information on that matter.

There is plenty about the Fourier series but I couldn't find much illuminating about the transform yet.

Thanks.

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  • $\begingroup$ My feeling about this is that the Fourier transform is a continuous version of the series. I therefore think that their history is somewhat tied together. $\endgroup$
    – Spice the Bird
    Commented Aug 5, 2012 at 19:03

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I. Grattan Guinness, Joseph Fourier 1768-1830. A survey of his life and work, based on a critical edition of his monograph on the propagation of heat, presented to the Institut de France in 1807.

Fourier transform, unlike Fourier series, was really invented by Fourier, when he studied the heat equation.

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In his book Lectures on Fourier integrals (Annals of math. studies 42, Princeton University Press), Solomon Bochner gives some historical comments (section “Remarks — Quotations”, p. 281).

The article of Dominguez, doi:10.1109/MPUL.2015.2498500, partly retraces this discussion.

It seems a detailed and complete historical account is still awaiting its author.

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