Some Notes on Laplace

Abstract

I should begin, I suppose, by confessing that my talk of today was concocted under something of a misapprehension. When I heard that we were to commemorate James Bernoulli, Thomas Bayes and Pierre-Simon De Laplace, I envisaged an exercise similar to that carried out by my own college each year in memory of Jeremy Bentham, and I prepared myself accordingly. I am sorry if my talk does not fit in with the general scheme but nevertheless and in spite of the modern attitude summarised so aptly by the phrase “History is bunk,” I propose to speak the traditional words of commemoration and to say “Let us now praise famous men and in particular Pierre-Simon De Laplace, Pair de France, Grand officier de la Légion d’honneur, l’un des quarante de l’Académie française, de l’Académie des Sciences, membre du Bureau des Longitudes de France; des Sociétés royales de Londres et de Göttingen, des Académies des Sciences de Russie, de Danemark; de Suède, de Prusse, des Pays-Bas, d’Italie; mathematician, astronomer, physicist, chemist and politician. He was honored in his generation and a glory in his days. His memory shall not be blotted out.”

This investigation was supported (in part) by a research grant (No. GM-10525) from the National Institutes of Health. Public Health Service.