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BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT SCIENTISTS
Laplace Pierre-Simon. Biography of a scientist
Directory / Biographies of great scientists
Napoleon, who judged people very correctly, wrote about Laplace in his memoirs on the island of St. Helena: "The great astronomer sinned by considering life from the point of view of infinitesimals." Indeed, everything that did not concern science was infinitely small for Laplace. Strict and demanding of himself when it came to science, in everyday life Laplace acted sometimes well, sometimes badly, depending on the circumstances, neglecting all this as infinitely small, in the name of the main business of his life - scientific creativity. For the sake of science, he even changed his beliefs. Apparently, it is worth treating some moments in the life of Laplace as infinitely small in comparison with the great and significant that the scientist created in astronomy, mathematics and physics. Pierre-Simon Laplace was born on March 23, 1749 in the town of Beaumont-en-Auge (Normandy) into a poor peasant family. Subsequently, the Count and Marquis of Laplace was ashamed of his humble origin, so very little is known about his childhood and youth. Pierre-Simon showed his outstanding abilities early, graduated from the Benedictines school with brilliance and was left there, in Beaumont, as a teacher of mathematics at a military school. At the age of seventeen he wrote his first scientific work. Life in the provincial Beaumont burdened Laplace, and in 1766 he went to Paris. There, with the help of d'Alembert, he obtained a position as a mathematics teacher at the Military School of Paris. In 1772, Laplace made an attempt to enter the Paris Academy of Sciences, but failed in the elections. D'Alembert tried to get his protégé into the Berlin Academy and wrote a letter to its President Lagrange: "This young man is eager to study mathematics, and I think he has enough talent to excel in this field." But Lagrange politely refused. He replied that the conditions at the Berlin Academy of Sciences were bad, and he did not recommend entering it. In 1773, Laplace became an adjunct, and in 1785 a full member of the Paris Academy. In 1778, Laplace married Charlotte de Courti, a beautiful woman with a kind character and was happy in his personal life. The wife loved her husband, bowed before him and did everything to protect him from domestic worries and worries, so that he could devote all his time to science. Family life Laplace, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, flowed smoothly and pleasantly. He had a daughter and a son - later General Laplace. In 1784, Laplace was made an examiner of the royal artillery corps. On May 8, 1790, the National Assembly of France instructed the Academy of Sciences to create a system of weights and measures "for all times and for all peoples." Laplace was appointed Chairman of the Chamber of Weights and Measures, who was entrusted with leading the introduction of a new system of measures in the country. After the popular uprising of 1793, a Jacobin dictatorship was established in France. Soon the revolution began to decline. On August 8, 1793, by decree of the Convention, the Academy of Sciences, among all other royal institutions, was abolished, and Laplace was dismissed from the Commission on Weights and Measures due to "the lack of republican virtues and too weak hatred of kings." In 1794, the Convention created the Normal School, intended for the training of teachers, and the Central School of Public Works, which was later renamed the Polytechnic School. Laplace was a professor in both of these schools. An outstanding institution of higher education was the Polytechnic School, about which contemporaries said that it was "an institution without a rival and without a model, an institution envied by all of Europe, the first school in the world." In addition to Laplace, such famous scientists as Monge, Lagrange, Carnot taught there. In 1795, instead of the abolished Academy of Sciences, the Convention created the National Institute of Sciences and Arts. Laplace becomes a member of the Institute and heads the Bureau of Longitudes, which measured the length of the earth's meridian. The day after the coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon, who came to power, appointed Laplace Minister of the Interior. In this post, the scientist lasted only six months and was replaced by Napoleon's brother Lucien Bonaparte. In order not to offend the scientist, Bonaparte appointed Laplace a member of the Senate and sent him a courteous letter. In 1803, Napoleon made Laplace Vice-President of the Senate, and a month later - Chancellor. In 1804, the scientist received the Order of the Legion of Honor. From 1801 to 1809 Laplace was elected a member of the royal societies in Turin and Copenhagen, the academies of sciences in Göttingen, Berlin and Holland. October 13, 1802 Laplace became an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Laplace's scientific interests lay in the field of mathematics, mathematical physics and celestial mechanics. He is the author of fundamental works on differential equations, for example, on integration by the "cascade" method of partial differential equations. He introduced spherical functions into mathematics, which are used to find the general solution of the Laplace equation and in solving problems of mathematical physics for areas bounded by spherical surfaces. Significant results were obtained by him in algebra. Laplace's Analytical Theory of Probability was published three times during the author's lifetime (in 1812, 1814, 1820). To develop the mathematical theory of probability he created, Laplace introduced the so-called generating functions, which are used not only in this field of knowledge, but also in function theory and algebra. The scientist summarized everything that had been done in the theory of probability before him by Pascal, Fermat and J. Bernoulli. He brought their results into a coherent system, simplified the methods of proof, for which he widely applied the transformation that now bears his name, and proved the theorem on the deviation of the frequency of occurrence of an event from its probability, which also now bears the name of Laplace. Thanks to him, the theory of probability acquired a finished form. Well about this ability of Laplace to improve, deepen and complete the field of knowledge in which he was engaged, said J. B. J. Fourier: "... Laplace was born in order to deepen everything, push back all boundaries in order to solve what seemed insoluble He would have completed the science of the sky if this science could have been completed." In physics, Laplace derived a formula for the speed of sound propagation in air, created an ice calorimeter, and obtained a barometric formula for calculating the change in air density with height, taking into account its humidity. He performed a number of works on the theory of capillarity and established a law (bearing his name), which allows one to determine the magnitude of capillary pressure and thereby write down the conditions of mechanical equilibrium for moving (liquid) interfaces. The greatest amount of Laplace's research relates to celestial mechanics, which he did all his life. The first work on this topic was published in 1773. It was called "On the cause of universal gravitation and on the secular inequalities of the planets that depend on it." In 1780, Laplace proposed a new method for calculating the orbits of celestial bodies. He sought to explain all the visible movements of celestial bodies, relying on Newton's law of universal gravitation, and he succeeded. Laplace proved the stability of the solar system. Newton himself believed that the solar system was unstable. Laplace's great success was his solution of the secular inequality in the motion of the moon. He showed that the average speed of the moon depends on the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, and that, in turn, changes under the influence of the attraction of the planets. Laplace proved that this motion is long-period and that after some time the Moon will begin to move slowly. According to the inequalities of the motion of the Moon, he determined the magnitude of the compression of the Earth at the poles. In his report, read at the academy on November 19, 1787, Laplace said: "... there was still a celestial phenomenon - the acceleration of the average motion of the Moon, which still could not be subordinated to the law of gravity. The geometers who dealt with it concluded from their studies that it could not be explained by universal gravitation, and in order to explain it, they sought help in various hypotheses, for example, in the resistance of interplanetary space, in the finite velocity of gravity, in the action of comets, etc. However, after various attempts, I was finally able to discover the true cause of this phenomenon ... While studying the theory of Jupiter's satellites, I discovered that secular variations in the eccentricity of Jupiter's orbit must produce secular inequalities in their mean motions. I hastened to apply this result to the Moon, and found that secular variations in the eccentricity of the earth's orbit produced in the mean motion of the Moon just such an inequality as had been found by astronomers... It is very remarkable that an astronomer, without leaving his observatory, and only by comparing his observations with analysis, can accurately determine the size and oblateness of the Earth and the distance of this planet from the Sun and Moon - elements, the knowledge of which was the fruit of long and difficult journeys. Being engaged in celestial mechanics, Laplace came to the conclusion that the ring of Saturn cannot be continuous, otherwise it would be unstable; predicted the compression of Saturn at the poles; established the laws of motion of Jupiter's satellites. It can be said that Laplace completed almost everything in celestial mechanics that his predecessors failed to achieve. And he did it, relying on the law of universal gravitation. The results obtained were published by Laplace in his most famous five-volume classic Treatise on Celestial Mechanics (1798-1825). The first and second volumes contain methods for calculating the motion of the planets, determining their shape and the theory of tides, the third and fourth - the application of these methods and numerous astronomical tables. The fifth volume contains various historical information and the results of the scientist's latest research. Laplace was a materialist, but he did not advertise his atheism. True, he did not hide his views. Once, when Napoleon told him that he had read his work and found no god there, the scientist proudly replied: "I did not need such a hypothesis." Laplace was a determinist. He believed that if the location of the bodies of a certain system and the forces acting on it are known, then it is possible to predict how each body of this system will move in the future. He wrote: "We must consider the present state of the universe as a consequence of its previous state and as the cause of the next." Laplace, like many scientists of that time, did not like hypotheses. Only once did he change this rule and "like Kepler, Descartes, Leibniz and Buffon entered the realm of hypotheses related to cosmogony." Laplace's cosmogonic hypothesis was published in 1796 as an appendix to his book "The Overlay of the System of the World". According to Laplace's hypothesis, the solar system was formed from a primary nebula, consisting of hot gas and extending far beyond the orbit of the most distant planet. The rotational motion of the cooling and contracting nebula caused its flattening. In the process of this flattening, a centrifugal force arose, under the influence of which rings of gaseous matter separated from the nebula along its edge, which then gathered into lumps and gave rise to planets and their satellites. His hypothesis was generally accepted in science for a century. Over time, it came into conflict with the newly discovered patterns in the solar system and was abandoned. Undoubtedly, Laplace was a great scientist. His scientific legacy is enormous. Information about him as a person is very contradictory. L. Poinsot wrote in one of his works: "Lagrange and Laplace for the first time...". Laplace had no work in this area, and Lagrange naturally asked Poinsot why he mentioned Laplace's name. Poinsot replied: "At first I quoted only your name. I showed the first edition of my work to one of my friends. Do you want to present to the academy," he told me, "a memoir on mechanics without mentioning the name of Laplace? You will not be appreciated!" Here is an example of a different kind. In his memoirs, another famous French scientist J.-B. Bio wrote: “Everyone understands what a great price a young man had for close communication with such a powerful and all-encompassing genius. It’s hard to imagine the extent to which his paternal kindness and tender care reached ... ... Laplace's home environment was distinguished by the same simplicity as his treatment, this is known to all young people who had the good fortune to be in close relations with him. Around Laplace there were many young people - adopted by thought and feeling, he used to talk with them during the rest after morning classes and before breakfast. His breakfast was purely Pythagorean: it consisted of milk, coffee, and fruit. It was always served in the premises of Madame Laplace, who received us like her own mother. At that time she was very pretty, and in years she could only be our sister. We did not hesitate to spend whole hours with Laplace in conversations, talking about the subjects of our study, about the success and significance of the work we had begun, and making plans for future work. Laplace very often entered into the details of our position and was so concerned about our future that we could boldly put aside all concern for it. Instead, he demanded from us only diligence, effort and passion for work. All this can be repeated by each of us regarding Laplace ... " Laplace is especially condemned for being apolitical. He always left the losers and went over to the side of the winners. So, in 1814, Laplace was one of the first to vote for the deposition of Napoleon. But we must remember that the main thing in Laplace's life was not politics, but science. He gave himself to her with all his passion, he served her faithfully, in her he was honest, frank and principled to the end. Sometimes he was mistaken. For example, he did not accept the wave theory of light and insisted on its corpuscular nature. But other great scientists also suffered from errors of this kind. Laplace was a well-educated man. He knew languages, history, philosophy, chemistry and biology, not to mention astronomy, mathematics and physics. He loved poetry, music, painting. He had an excellent memory and, to a ripe old age, recited whole pages from Racine by heart. After the restoration of the monarchy, Laplace enjoyed the favor of Louis XVIII. The king made him a peer of France and granted him the title of marquis. In 1816, the scientist was appointed a member of the commission for the reorganization of the Polytechnic School. In 1817, Laplace became a member of the newly created French Academy, that is, one of the forty immortals. The scientist died after a short illness on March 5, 1827. His last words were: "What we know is so insignificant compared to what we don't know." Author: Samin D.K.
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