I thought it was time to look at another interesting mathematician. This week it is Pierre-Simon LaPlace.- Lived from 1749 to 1827, all in France.
- Married at age 39 to an 18 year old.
- Made important contributions to the method of least squares - used to find a best fitting line.
- Wrote the five volume Celestial Mechanics contributing greatly to a theory of the origins of the universe.
- Appointed by Napoleon Bonaparte to be Minister of the Interior of France.
- Later regretting this, Napoleon later stated, "Laplace was not long in showing himself a worse than average administrator."
- Very possible apocryphal, but Napoleon was speaking to Laplace on the influence of God on a a particular situation to which he replied, "I had no need of that hypothesis."
- Commenting on this story, Stephen Hawking said, "I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God does not exist. It's just that he doesn't intervene, to break the laws of science."
- When he died, his brain was removed and displayed.
- He is buried in Paris in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery along side other star-studded famous residents Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Bizet, Maria Callas, Chopin, Joseph Fourier, Yves Montand, Jim Morrison, Marcel Proust, Rossini, and Oscar Wilde.
