All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.
Interpretation
Nature operates according to fundamental mathematical laws that remain constant.
Pierre-Simon Laplace's quote reflects the idea that the complexities and phenomena we observe in nature can ultimately be traced back to a handful of unchanging mathematical principles. It suggests that beneath the surface of the natural world lies a structured and predictable framework governed by these immutable laws, emphasizing the relationship between mathematics and the natural sciences.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the predictability of natural phenomena in a science class.
Without any doubt, the regularity which astronomy shows us in the movements of the comets takes place in all phenomena. The trajectory of a simple molecule of air or vapour is regulated in a manner as certain as that of the planetary orbits; the only difference between them is that which is contributed by our ignorance. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.
It is interesting thus to follow the intellectual truths of analysis in the phenomena of nature. This correspondence, of which the system of the world will offer us numerous examples, makes one of the greatest charms attached to mathematical speculations.
The word 'chance' then expresses only our ignorance of the causes of the phenomena that we observe to occur and to succeed one another in no apparent order. Probability is relative in part to this ignorance, and in part to our knowledge.
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 eye.
The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.
Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.
I am on the edge of mysteries and the veil is getting thinner and thinner.
It turned out that the buckyball, the soccer ball, was something of a Rosetta stone of an infinite new class of molecules.
We live on a minute island of known things. Our undiminished wonder at the mystery which surrounds us is what makes us human. In science fiction we can approach that mystery, not in small, everyday symbols, but in bigger ones of space and time.
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
It takes so long to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them.
The 'medical examination' to which abductees are said to be subjected, often accompanied by sadistic sexual manipulation, is reminiscient of the medieval tales of encounters with demons. It makes no sense in a sophisticated or technical framework: any intelligent being equipped with the scientific marvels that UFOs possess would be in a position to achieve any of these alleged scientific objectives in a shorter time and with fewer risks.
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