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The Fundamentals of Direct Mail - A Description of France

from 1983​-​2002 by Larry Wendt

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This is a personal recollection of a Paris which I never knew. It is an anecdotal remembrance of Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier with more than a nod to Raymond Roussel as filtered through the radio of Jean Cocteau's taxi. This is of course, the Fourier of the mathematical memoir, On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies, a somewhat controversial view at that time in which the author described the diffusion of heat by a partial differential equation which could be solved using an infinite series of trigonometric functions. The equations for Fourier Analysis as it has since become known, also turned out to be very useful in the analysis and re-synthesis of sound (which is very much like slow heat), and as such could be described as an infinite series of sine waves of different amplitudes, frequency and phase.
Joseph Fourier was also the scientific advisor for Napoleon during the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. Besides his papers on mathematics, Fourier spent several years writing Description of Egypt in 25 volumes and which Napoleon then extensively rewrote, essentially changing history before it was allowed to be published. With its second edition, however, Napoleon himself had become written out of the history of this period, and the story was retold minus his appearance. The Rosetta Stone was found by Napoleon's troops during their invasion. The black granite slab inscribed with identical texts in demotic, Greek, and hieroglyphics provided Jean François Champollion, a French linguist, and proto-Egyptologist, with the key to the decipherment of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. This he finally solved in 1821.
This somewhat confessional narration here describes a small, insignificant, and imaginary dinner party celebrating the return of the French scientific delegation from Egypt in 1801. Fourier was the guest of honor, and all his science buddies were there as well as the chief archaeologist for the expedition, Jean Jacques Champollion-Figeac, who was the elder brother of Jean François. The younger Champollion was only 11 at the time but quite precocious and considered by many of his fellow Frenchmen, even at such a young age, to be a genuine genius.

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from 1983​-​2002, released May 2, 2023

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WHY KEITH DROPPED THE S

In the liner notes of many 60s and 70s Rolling Stones releases, Keith Richards is named Keith Richard. Why did he drop the s?

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