EeEEeeeEEEEEeeeeeeee
Happy birthday, Pierre-Simon Laplace!
Considered the “Newton of France”, Laplace is another one of those guys who just did EVERYTHING. He did a lot with probability—both Frequentist and Bayesian—and he’s even got a distribution named after him.
Anyway.
I know at least three of my readers dig The Oatmeal. Today I read a comic of his that I’d never seen before. I advise you to read it as well if you haven’t yet come across it.
AAAHHHHHHHH LAPLACE I LOVE YOU
(Don’t worry, Leibniz, you’re still my #1!)
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”
YES! YES!!!!! This is EXACTLY how I’ve always thought of it, I’ve just never found a quote so close to my viewpoint!
I now forgive the distribution named after you, even if it is a pain.
Freaking yay.
Today’s song: Boy with a Coin by Iron and Wine
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