STEP 4: OUTLINE

1. Title: Pierre-Simon Laplace

2. Author: Carlos Kometter
3. Abstract:
Here, I do a biography of Pierre-Simon Laplace. I summarize key events in his
life that influenced his work, and his contributions and impacts in mathematics
and physics.
4. Historical Background:
Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace was born in Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy
on 23 March 1759. His father was Pierre Laplace, and his mother was MarieAnne Sochon. He wasnt born in an intellectually distinctive family, except
for his uncle who was high school teacher of mathematics.
Laplace attended a Benedictine priory school. It was common for the students
at this school to pursue a career in the Church or the army, so his father wanted
him to enter the Church.
While in his second year studying theology at the University of Caen, he
discovered his love for mathematics. I here where he writes a memoir Sur le
Calcul integral aux differences infinitment petites et aux differences finies.
This paper appeared in the fourth volume of Lagranges Miscellanea
Taurinensia journal.
Without graduating in theology, Laplace left to Paris. His professor wrote him
a letter of recommendation directed to Jean le Ron dAlembert. Thanks to a
recommendation made by DAlembert, Laplace got a teaching position at the
Military School of Paris at the age of seventeen. He later took a position of
examiner at the Royal Artillery Corps, where in 1784 the young Napoleon
Bonaparte passed his examination.
Laplaces prestige grew and in 1784 he became an academician in mechanics.
At the age of thirty-nine, Laplace married Marie-Charlotte de Courty de
Romanges, an eighteen-year-old girl from a good family. The had a son,
Charles-Emile, and a daughter, Sophie-Suzanne.
Laplace was part of the commission on the metric system. In 1799 the standard
meter and kilogram were made under his supervision.
Laplace died on March 5, 1827 nine o clock, one hundred years after Newton.
His last words were What we know is nothing in comparison with what we
do not know.

5. Contribution and Implications:

Almost all Laplaces scientific activities were devoted to celestial mechanics.
His multivolume Celestial Mechanics was the major work of his life.
In 1812, Laplace published the Theorie Analytique des Probabilites, where he
gives a method of approximating definite integrals, the solution of differential
equations, the use of difference equations, and the applications of probabilities
to the method of least squares and the theory of errors.
In this work he finds that the potential function satisfies the partial differential
equation: () known as Laplaces equations. The solutions of Laplaces equation
are the harmonic functions, which are important in the fields of
electromagnetism, astronomy and fluid dynamics. Laplaces equation helps to
describe the behavior of electric, gravitational and fluid potentials.
Euler and Lagrange were interested in integrals of the form () as solutions of
differential equations. Laplace also got interested in these integrals as solutions
of differential equations, but he also started to apply these integrals as
transforms which become popular later. This is known now as Laplace
transform theory.
In his research on the Exposition du Systeme du Monde, Laplace made a great
contribution to the theory of determinants:
i. He gave the name resultant for the value of the unknown
ii. A proof of the theorem for which the effect of the transposition of two
adjacent elements in the resultant.
iii. A proof of the theorem regarding the effect of equalizing two of the
elements of the resultant.
iv. A notation for the resultant, e.g. (1a2b2c)
v. A method of arriving at the solution of a set of simultaneous equations.
vi. A rule for expressing a resultant as an aggregate of terms composed of
factors which are themselves resultants.
vii. A method for finding the number of terms in this aggregate.
Laplace introduced the term finite differences.

6. References:
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Laplace.html
Edmund Whittaker (Vol. 33, No. 303 (Feb., 1949), pp. 1-12), "Laplace" The
Mathematical Gazette.
A. W. Richeson Laplace's Contributions to Pure Mathematics
Simon Gindikin Tales of Mathematicians and Physicists

Figure 1 Laplace's Equation