Laplace created a number of new mathematical methods that were subsequently expanded into branches of mathematics, but he never cared for mathematics except as it helped him to study nature.

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..!

With respect to the cohesion and of liquids, I have had the good fortune to anticipate Mr. Laplace in his late researches, and I have endeavoured to show, that my assumptions are more universally applicable to the facts, than those which that justly celebrated mathematician has employed.

They asked Laplace who, in his opinion, was the greatest mathematician of Germany. "It's Pfaff," he answered. - "I thought," the questioner replied, "that Gauss was superior to him." - "But," exclaimed Laplace, "you're asking me who is the greatest mathematician of Germany, and Gauss is the greatest mathematician of Europe."

Said the great and magnanimous Laplace: 'It is India that gave us the ingenious method of expressing all numbers by ten symbols, each receiving a value of position as well as an absolute value; a profound and important idea which appears so simple to us now that we ignore its true merit. But its very simplicity, the great ease which it has lent to all computations, puts our arithmetic in the first rank of useful inventions; and we shall appreciate the grandeur of this achievement the more when we remember that it escaped the genius of Archimedes and Apollonius, two of the greatest men produced by antiquity.'

It is readily seen that any theory written by Laplace will be superior to all produced of lower standing. It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils.

The great masters of modern analysis are Lagrange, Laplace, and Gauss, who were contemporaries. It is interesting to note the marked contrast in their styles. Lagrange is perfect both in form and matter, he is careful to explain his procedure, and though his arguments are general they are easy to follow. Laplace on the other hand explains nothing, is indifferent to style, and, if satisfied that his results are correct, is content to leave them either with no proof or with a faulty one. Gauss is as exact and elegant as Lagrange, but even more difficult to follow than Laplace, for he removes every trace of the analysis by which he reached his results, and studies to give a proof which while rigorous shall be as concise and synthetical as possible.

The extension of Black's method by the physicist Lavoisier led to the downfall of the purely qualitative theory of phlogiston, and gave to chemistry the true methods of investigation, and its first great quantitative law—the law of conservation of matter.

If the water flow down by a gradual natural channel, its potential energy is gradually converted into heat by fluid friction, according to an admirable discovery made by Mr Joule of Manchester above twelve years ago, which has led to the greatest reform that physical science has experienced since the days of Newton. From that discovery, it may be concluded with certainty that heat is not matter, but some kind of motion among the particles of matter; a conclusion established, it is true, by Sir Humphrey Davy and Count Rumford at the end of last century, but ignored by even the highest scientific men during a period of more than forty years.

His writings include works on mechanics, sound, astronomy, the tides, the laws of motion, the Torricellian tube, botany, physiology, music, the calendar (in opposition to the Gregorian reform), geology, and the compass,—a range too wide to allow of the greatest success in any of the lines of his activity. He was also an ingenious cryptologist and assisted the government in deciphering diplomatic messages.

... Palissy—like his contemporary Gilbert, and like Galileo who came very soon after him—was one of the chief engineers of the new paths of knowledge, and was in France the chief engineer. Indeed, astronomy and mathematics apart, he with Dodoens and Gesner were the first in Europe since Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Pliny, to pursue modern scientific methods in the worlds of geology, botany, and zoology, and to work and teach from and with the natural objects themselves.

In fact, the science of thermodynamics began with an analysis, by the great engineer Sadi Carnot, of the problem of how to build the best and most efficient engine, and this constitutes one of the few famous cases in which engineering has contributed to fundamental physical theory. Another example that comes to mind is the more recent analysis of information theory by Claude Shannon. These two analyses, incidentally, turn out to be closely related.

A work on tidal theory... led me to Lagrange's Mécanique analytique and thereby I returned to those ideas of analysis. All the developments in that work were transformed through the principles of the new analysis in such a simple way that the calculations often came out more than ten times shorter than in Lagrange's work.

did not accept the but evolved one of his own in which he makes the planets revolve about the Sun, but the Sun carries them with itself about the Earth. Part of his observations he reduced himself, publishing among other things a book on the , one on comets, and one on the lunar theory, and an important star catalogue. He had planned several other valuable works, but his early death cut short his projects. He was the first to perceive the importance of applying refraction to observations. He improved the values of the Sun's and Moon's , he discovered two variations in the Moon's longitude in addition to those already known, and one in latitude. In short he improved many values which depended on accurate observation for their determination.