Laplace... wrote Mécanique céleste discussing the motion of the planets. ...[O]ne ...reason why ...determinacy got its ...impetus from the developmen… - John Horton Conway

" "

Laplace... wrote Mécanique céleste discussing the motion of the planets. ...[O]ne ...reason why ...determinacy got its ...impetus from the development of science, was that Newton's theory of gravitation ...was entirely deterministic. It left no room for freedom. ...Laplace, who did a lot of work on Newtonian ...theory says ...An intellect ...[or] intelligence, which knew ...where all the particles were at some moment and how fast they were moving, and so on, that every single thing could be known to that intelligence, provided a ...good calculator. ...It could reason out exactly what was going to happen in the future. ...It's the strongest ...assertion of determinism in the scientific literature. I don't believe it for one moment..!

English
Collect this quote

About John Horton Conway

John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician, and Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University in New Jersey. He was active in the theory of s, , number theory, and . He also made contributions to many branches of , most notably the invention of the with . Born and raised in , Conway spent the first half of his career at the University of Cambridge before moving to the United States, where he held the John von Neumann Professorship at Princeton University for the rest of his career. He died of complications from COVID-19 at age 82.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: John H. Conway JHC John Conway Conway

Go Premium

Support Quotewise while enjoying an ad-free experience and premium features.

View Plans

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by John Horton Conway

FIN, the axiom that information can't travel faster than a finite speed, (that's where it gets its name from)... does not have that nice property. ...I can't disprove... that somewhere there isn't an as yet undiscovered way of transmitting information faster than... light. ...FIN ...follows from a symmetry principle that the laws of physics are independent of the coordinate frame ...If you're traveling ...at half the speed of light, you still have the same physics ...That symmetry principle ...that's been tested in countless ways, and that's ...why we believe FIN.

Loading...