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C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827)

Laplace, Pierre Simon, Marquis de (lä-pläs’). A renowned French mathematician and physical astronomer; born at Beaumont-en-Auge, March 28, 1749; died at Paris, March 5, 1827. In his great work ‘Mechanism of the Heavens’ (5 vols., 1799–1825), he attacks nearly every problem arising out of the movements of the heavenly bodies, and in great part offers the solution. His ‘Exposition of the System of the Universe’ (2 vols., 1796) may be regarded as a less abstruse presentation of the arguments advanced in the ‘Mechanism.’ His famous researches into the laws of probability are summed up in the two works: ‘Analytic Theory of Probabilities’ (1812), and ‘Philosophical Essay on Probabilities’ (1814).