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'''Pierre Simon Laplace''' (Beaumont-en-Auge, 1749 - París, 1827) was a [[French]] [[astronomer]] and [[mathematician]]. His works are described in his five volume ''"Celestial Mechanics"'' (1799-1825).
<blockquote>
''Laplace proved the stability of the solar system. In analysis Laplace introduced the potential function and Laplace coefficients. He also put the theory of mathematical probability on a sound footing.'' [http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Laplace.html]
</blockquote>
== Quotations ==
* It is [[India]] that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our [[arithmetic]] in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of [[Archimedes]] and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.
* The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to [[calculus]]; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which ofttimes they are unable to account.
* All the effects of [[Nature]] are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.
* Man follows only phantoms.
* What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.
== See also ==
*[[Laplace's Demon]]
*[[Laplace's equation]]
== External links ==
*[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Laplace.html Pierre-Simon Laplace]
*[http://universe-review.ca/R01-04-diffeq.htm Differential Equations]
[[Category:Physicists]]
[[Category:Astronomers]]
<blockquote>
''Laplace proved the stability of the solar system. In analysis Laplace introduced the potential function and Laplace coefficients. He also put the theory of mathematical probability on a sound footing.'' [http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Laplace.html]
</blockquote>
== Quotations ==
* It is [[India]] that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by means of ten symbols, each symbol receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity and the great ease which it has lent to computations put our [[arithmetic]] in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of the achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of [[Archimedes]] and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.
* The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to [[calculus]]; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which ofttimes they are unable to account.
* All the effects of [[Nature]] are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.
* Man follows only phantoms.
* What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.
== See also ==
*[[Laplace's Demon]]
*[[Laplace's equation]]
== External links ==
*[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Laplace.html Pierre-Simon Laplace]
*[http://universe-review.ca/R01-04-diffeq.htm Differential Equations]
[[Category:Physicists]]
[[Category:Astronomers]]