Pierre-Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Life in Exact SciencePrinceton University Press, 2018 M06 5 - 336 pages Pierre-Simon Laplace was among the most influential scientists in history. Often referred to as the lawgiver of French science, he is known for his technical contributions to exact science, for the philosophical point of view he developed in the presentation of his work, and for the leading part he took in forming the modern discipline of mathematical physics. His two most famous treatises were the five-volume Traité de mécanique céleste (1799-1825) and Théorie analytique des probabilités (1812). In the former he demonstrated mathematically the stability of the solar system in service to the universal Newtonian law of gravity. In the latter he developed probability from a set of miscellaneous problems concerning games, averages, mortality, and insurance risks into the branch of mathematics that permitted the quantification of estimates of error and the drawing of statistical inferences, wherever data warranted, in social, medical, and juridical matters, as well as in the physical sciences. |
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... later incorporated into the great treatises Traité de mécanique céleste ( 1799-1825 ) and Théorie analytique des probabilités ( 1812 and later editions ) . They were informed in large part by the mathematical techniques that he ...
... later editions to analysis of the credibility of witnesses and the procedures of judicial panels and electoral bodies , and in the increasing sophistication of the statistical treatment of geodetic and meteorological data . Before ...
... later annexed without proof to his first memoir on probability although it has nothing to do with that subject . Reworking this material two years later , in 1773 , Laplace repudiated this earliest publication , or very nearly so ...
... later when Laplace was chosen an adjunct member in Paris . ' 9 9OL , 13 , pp . 254–56 . 10 10 Bigourdan's statement that he was admitted directly to the second rank of associé is incorrect . ( Bigourdan [ 1931 ] p . 384 ) . CHAPTER 2 ...
... later , that he had come upon equations in finite differences of another , novel type . " They are the analogues in finite analysis of partial differential equations and give rise to a complex set of series , the general term of which ...
Contents
LAPLACE IN HIS PRIME 17781789 | 65 |
SYNTHESIS AND SCIENTIFIC STATESMANSHIP | 147 |
LAPLACIAN PHYSICS AND PROBABILITY | 197 |
THE LAPLACE TRANSFORM | 257 |
Conclusion | 271 |
Abbreviations | 280 |
Bibliography | 281 |
Index | 319 |
Other editions - View all
Pierre-Simon Laplace, 1749-1827: A Life in Exact Science Charles Coulston Gillispie,Robert Fox,I. Grattan-Guinness No preview available - 1997 |