Two episodes are devoted to mathematics. In episode 1, Étienne Ghys tells the remarkable story of a paper submitted by Henri Poincaré for an Academy competition in 1880. Poincaré submitted not only his paper but also two addenda, sent a few months apart, to supplement it. His work broke new ground in using non-Euclidean geometries to tackle problems involving differential equations—yet it did not win the prize!
Episode 4 presents Joseph Fourier's paper for an Academy prize competition on the propagation of heat, held in 1811. Not only did Fourier win the prize, but in his paper he also introduced what would become known as Fourier series. They would go on to play a central role in image processing, among many other applications.
We hope that further videos will complement the first five, allowing us to delve into these fascinating manuscripts from the history of science!
