Mathematician of the week

Pierre-Simon Laplace

1749 -1827

Laplace was born Normandy to a family who were relatively well off for their situation. Father was a merchant and his mother was from a well off farming family. Initially Laplace went to a priory school till the age of 16. He then enrolled at Caen University to study theology (this is becoming a recurring theme in our mathematicians) however during his time there he discovered his talent for mathematics (this keeps on happening too). Credit for this discovery partially goes to his teachers there.

As soon as this talent was discovered he left the university and went to Paris at this point he was only 19. When he arrived in Paris he was introduced to d’Alembert (he is well known for studying differential equations). Laplace was then tutored by d’Alembert and he assisted him in finding work.

 His early work in Paris during the early 1770’s was into difference equations and maxima and minima. He also read papers on these two topics to the Academy during this time. He also tried to gain a position into the Academy and he eventually succeeded in 1773. It was also around this time where he would begin the study of planetary motion, differential equations and probability.

In the next stage of his career during the 1780’s Laplace increased the depth of his results and gained his reputation. However he also considered himself the best mathematician in France which didn’t go down well with his colleagues (even though he was probably correct!) He was also appointed a position in the French army examining cadets and he actually examined a young Napoleon!

A point of note is that in the mid 1780’s Lagrange came to Paris to work with Laplace and although there was a rivalry the two men seemed to get along (obviously for the love of mathematics).

This now brings us to the 1790’s (yeh the French revolution!) and the time when the Academy was suppressed. Laplace then left Paris with his family and he gained a position training school teachers however this position didn’t last for long (his courses were a little advanced). Laplace then returned to the reopened Academy where he presented his nebular hypothesis. This was a modern view of the evolution of the solar system (a large cooling, rotating cloud of gas into what we see now).

In and around 1799 Laplace published some of his greatest work in planetary motion. He was able to prove that he planetary orbits are stable and self correcting. Moving into the 1800’s Laplace began work in probability and again published papers in applications of probability and errors to name a few.

So in summary:

·         Laplace was a very savvy politician and this enabled him to reach some of the positions had during his life.

·         The Laplace equation is named after him (highly important partial differential equation)

·          He was a little arrogant (and why not? He was good!).