Pierre Simon Laplace facts
While investigating facts about Pierre Simon Laplace, I found out little known, but curios details like:
From 1771 t0 1787 he was a teacher at the Ecole Militaire which allowed him time for scientific research.
In 1773 he was elected to the French Academy of Sciences.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 24 of the best facts about Pierre Simon Laplace I managed to collect.
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He became friends with the Italian mathematician and astronomer, Joseph Louis Lagrange.
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In 1765 entered the University of Caen to study theology.
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In 1774 he published Memoire sur la probabilite des causes par les evenements which established his reputation in the field of mathematics.
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Pierre-Simon Laplace expressed Euler's importance to mathematics: "Read Euler, read Euler, he is the master of us all."
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Between 1784 and 1786 he published three papers identifying and explaining the "great Jupiter-Saturn inequality."
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Laplace developed the concept of scalar potential which defines how gravitational vectors will behave.
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Using Newtonian physics and Euler's earlier research, Laplace concluded that any two planets and the sun must be in equilibrium for the solar system to remain stable.
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In 1776 he began working on celestial mechanics and the stability of the solar system.
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The nebular hypothesis of the formation of the solar system continues is the currently accepted explanation for planetary origins.
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Pierre-Simon was born in Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy where his father owned and farmed some small estates.
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In 1771 he published works on differential equations and finite differences and researched mathematical concepts of probability and statistics.
Unfortunately Laplace did not often credit the work of other scientists so it is not always possible to determine which ideas are original with him.
While there he discovered a passion for mathematics and wrote differences Sur le Calcul integral aux infinitment petites et aux differences finies.
In it he introduced spherical harmonics and the concept of gravitational potential in celestial mechanics.
Much of the information regarding the early life of Laplace was lost when the home of his great-great-grandson, the Comte de Colbert-Laplace, burned in 1925.
Laplace elaborated on the nebular hypothesis first proposed by Emanuel Swedenborg and Immanuel Kant.
He realized that the eccentricities in their orbits was due to the near approach to commensurability of their mean motions.
Lagrange founded the Royal Society of Turin and established a journal, Miscellanea Taurinensia.
Pierre-Simon Laplace, the physicist who came up with the Laplace equation and the Laplace transform in physics, was also known as Newton of France. He also developed the modern theory on the formation of the Solar System and was the first person to postulate the existence of black holes.
Between 1799 and 1825 he published Mecanique celeste,a five volume work on astronomy in which he intended to "offer a complete solution of the great mechanical problem presented by the solar system."
It was in this journal that Laplace published his first scientific paper in 1776.