Joseph Fourier, the Heat Equation and the Age of the Earth

Joseph Bennish, Professor Emeritus of California State University, Long Beach, joins us for an excursion into physics and some of the mathematics it inspired. Joseph Fourier straddled mathematics and physics. Here we focus on his heat equation, based on partial differential equations. Partial differential equations have broad applications. Fourier developed not only the heat equation but also a way to solve it. This equation was used to answer, among other questions, the issue of the age of the earth. Was the earth too young to make Darwin's theory credible?