Talk:Pierre-Simon Laplace

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	France Portal Pierre-Simon Laplace is within the scope of WikiProject France, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to France and Monaco on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments, explaining the ratings and/or suggest improvements.)

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ] (If you rated the article, please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
	This article is supported by the Science and academia work group.
More information about this article... This article has been marked as needing immediate attention.

	Astronomy Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Astronomy, which collaborates on articles related to astronomy.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
Help with this template This article has been rated but has no comments. If appropriate, please review the article and leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics.
Mathematics grading:	B Class	Importance unassessed.	Field unassessed.
A vital article

Contents 1 Mass of Saturn 2 Pronunciation 3 Rule of succession promenence 4 celestial mechanics 5 creationist slant? 6 Confused 7 Maximum computability

[edit] Mass of Saturn

Can we see his calculation of the mass of Saturn?

[edit] Pronunciation

How do you pronounce his name? "Lap-lace", or "law-plause"? Anyone trying to record the Featured article on Free Will needs to know this. -William Morgan

it's pronounced "la" (the a is sounded as in father) - "plass" (rhymes with glass) --Sysys 00:46, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You are correct on the first syllable, but not the second. The "a" in both syllables rhymes with the a in "father." So the correct pronunciation is "Lahh - plahhss". -- Metacomet 01:55, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't imagine any French-speaking person pronouncing it that way. If split into the root words "la" and "place" ("the" and "place" in English), both a's are pronounced as the one in "glass". Dictionary.com seems to disagree, but I can't see why the name would have such an odd pronunciation given that it's constructed from such simple words (unless they're unrelated, which would seem bizarre). -- 70.81.118.123 09:28, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

A French dictionnary gives the pronunciation in international phonetic spelling (for both root words) [la] [plas]. It is not Lap-lace but La-place (two syllables with a close to "glass" — although I don't know the difference between the "a" in "father" and in "glass"...) Santa Sangre 15:57, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

F(AW)ther... Gl(AH)ss... I guess it depends on how you normally pronounce the words. - 70.81.118.123 15:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rule of succession promenence

It is weird that so MUCH of this article is about the rule of succession, one of the less well-known things associated with Laplace, and so little about the many other things associated with him. Michael Hardy 00:10, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for volunteering to rewrite it. :-) -- Curps 19:23, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've noticed that there are a lot of active Bayesians writing here at wikipedia and that's cool. But to call Laplace a Bayesian is an anachronism that is a little too much I think. Laplace did so much so it can be hard for a mere mortal to grasp, but the induction rule referred to in the article was definitely not on of his greatest achievements. INic 22:13, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

This statement is conceptually narrow and potentially false: "The discoveries of modern physics, especially quantum physics and uncertainty principle proved that the existence of such an intellect is not possible even in principle." As displayed in Interpretation of quantum mechanics, quantum theory has not ruled out causal determinism and only interpretations of it make Laplace's demon impossible. --Psients 10:17, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The problem with your discussion on how the 'a' in glass should sound probably lies with the fact that one of you two is american, the other british? Both a's in laplace are pronounced as they are in father, or the british pronunciation of glass

[edit] celestial mechanics

Could we have more on his celestial mechanics? Charles Matthews 15:21, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Express evidence that Laplace saw himself as an atheist, rather than a deist or agnostic. for example, should be supplied. It will be difficult to come by for anyone favored by the Restoration Bourbons, of course...

The famous anecdote about Napoleon and the Celestial Mechanics is not sufficient. Septentrionalis 15:35, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] creationist slant?

The last paragraph seems a bit off-topic and seems to be trying to inject a creationist argument.Blaise 08:28, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

You mean, I suppose, the following sentence, which is unsourced, unevidenced, and (to my mind) unlikely. I have removed it:

Predicting the rise of life in the universe, for example, requires vastly more data than this, and so, according to the theory, is computationally infeasible to predict.

[edit] Confused

It says in the Catholic Encyclopedia[[1]] (please click here for more info) that "Laplace was born and died a Catholic," and that it is mistaken that he had a determinist slant. Here, it says that he was a determinist. Can anyone help me? I'm obviously confused. Oh, and what about this source;[[2]] (this link) also says that it is mistaken that he was on an atheistic slant. I'm just supplying you with more evidence so you can help me answer!

-Tlozano

Laplace was obviously a determinist, that's the sense of "Laplace's demon". I don't know why you would want to oppose that to Catholic faith; both are not contradictory. Science & faith is not contradictory since Kant's critique, which limited the assertions that Reason can make to a specific field; further on from this field lies questions which science can't resolve, such as, in Kant's words, the existence (or not) of an immortal soul, the existence of God, the existence of liberty, etc. The Catholic Encyclopedia seems to be biased in claiming determinism is opposed to religion. Santa Sangre 15:49, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

ps: since Kant who resolved this conflict between science & religion, only Fundamentalists (whatever their religion) oppose both. Santa Sangre 15:59, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

If Laplace died in communion with the Church of France (as is almost certain for a Restoration civil servant) that does not mean he was not a determinist. It would not surprise me if the Catholic Encyclopedia is misleading here; nor would it surprise me if they had edifying anecdotes about Voltaire's deathbed either. None of this justifies the category atheist, or any or its subcats, without discussion and sources in the article. Septentrionalis 19:59, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Maximum computability

The article talks about the maximum data computable (at the end of the section on laplace's demon), but provides no reference. Can someone please look to providing a reference for this? 129.78.64.106 05:52, 15 September 2006 (UTC)