6 Quotes & Sayings By Pierresimon Laplace

Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was a French mathematician and physicist whose work was instrumental in establishing mathematical physics as a distinct discipline. His three main contributions were: (1) the Laplace transform, which is used to analyze the time-evolving behavior of physical systems; (2) the concept of probability, which is central to the study of statistics and is now considered a branch of mathematics; and (3) the theory of determinants, which is used both in linear algebra and matrix theory. Laplace's achievements earned him entry into many historical lists of notable mathematicians – he was the first person ever to be awarded a chair at the Académie Française, and was later appointed president of this prestigious institution.

Your Excellency, I have no need of this hypothesis.
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Your Excellency, I have no need of this hypothesis. PierreSimon Laplace
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We ought to regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its antecedent state and as the cause of the state that is to follow. An intelligence knowing all the forces acting in nature at a given instant, as well as the momentary positions of all things in the universe, would be able to comprehend in one single formula the motions of the largest bodies as well as the lightest atoms in the world, provided that its intellect were sufficiently powerful to subject all data to analysis; to it nothing would be uncertain, the future as well as the past would be present to its eyes. The perfection that the human mind has been able to give to astronomy affords but a feeble outline of such an intelligence. PierreSimon Laplace
Probability theory is nothing more than common sense reduced to...
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Probability theory is nothing more than common sense reduced to calculation. -1819 PierreSimon Laplace
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[Science] dissipates errors born of ignorance about our true relations with nature, errors the more damaging in that the social order should rest only on those relations. TRUTH! JUSTICE! Those are the immutable laws. Let us banish the dangerous maxim that it is sometimes useful to depart from them and to deceive or enslave mankind to assure its happiness. PierreSimon Laplace
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The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated. . The importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyod the two greatest men of antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius. PierreSimon Laplace