A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

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Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain. And the future as the past would be present to its eyes.

Pierre-Simon Laplace

More information about this quote

Topic

Predicting the future Determinism

Author

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Source

A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

Language

French

Time

1812 1810s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Laplace, Pierre-Simon. Theorie Analytique des Probabilities [Analytic Theory of Probability]. Paris: Madame Va Courcier, 1812.