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.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that a supreme intelligence could understand and predict all natural phenomena, regardless of scale.
Pierre-Simon Laplace's quote emphasizes the potential for a profoundly advanced intelligence to grasp the complexities of the universe, encompassing everything from celestial bodies to atomic particles. This perception reflects a deterministic view of nature, where every event and existence can be understood through a comprehensive analysis, implying that if such intelligence existed, it could foresee the future with perfect clarity as it understands the past.
In practice
In a science lecture discussing determinism and predictability in nature.
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.
All the effects of Nature are only the mathematical consequences of a small number of immutable laws.
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.
The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.
Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.
...as our friend Zach has often noted, in our days those who do the best for astronomy are not the salaried university professors, but so-called dillettanti, physicians, jurists, and so forth.Lamenting the fragmentary time left to a professor has remaining after fulfilling his teaching duties.
The noble science of Geology loses glory from the extreme imperfection of the record. The crust of the earth with its embedded remains must not be looked at as a well-filled museum, but as a poor collection made at hazard and at rare intervals.
The best simulator for spacewalking is underwater - it allows full visuals and body movement in 3D. Virtual reality is good, too, and has some advantages, like full Station simulation, not just part. Like all simulators, they have parts that are wrong and misleading: an important thing to remember when preparing for reality.
I'm not trying to copy Nature, I'm trying to find the principles she's using.
It's a pity that nobody has found an exploding black hole. If they had, I would have won a Nobel prize.
Scientific understanding is often beautiful, a profoundly aesthetic experience which gives pleasure not unlike the reading of a great poem.
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