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|awards = |signature = Pierre-Simon Laplace signature.svg }} Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was an influential French scholar whose work was important to the development of mathematics, statistics, physics, and astronomy. He summarized and extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume ''Mécanique Céleste'' (Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825). This work translated the geometric study of classical mechanics to one based on calculus, opening up a broader range of problems. In statistics, the Bayesian interpretation of probability was developed mainly by Laplace.〔Stigler, Stephen M. (1986). ''The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900''. Harvard University Press, Chapter 3.〕 Laplace formulated Laplace's equation, and pioneered the Laplace transform which appears in many branches of mathematical physics, a field that he took a leading role in forming. The Laplacian differential operator, widely used in mathematics, is also named after him. He restated and developed the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the Solar System and was one of the first scientists to postulate the existence of black holes and the notion of gravitational collapse. Laplace is remembered as one of the greatest scientists of all time. Sometimes referred to as the ''French Newton'' or ''Newton of France'', he possessed a phenomenal natural mathematical faculty superior to that of any of his contemporaries.〔() (1911) "(Pierre Simon, Marquis De Laplace )", ''Encyclopaedia Britannica''〕 Laplace became a count of the First French Empire in 1806 and was named a marquis in 1817, after the Bourbon Restoration. ==Early years== The original documents relating to the life of Laplace were lost when the family château of Saint-Julien de Mailloc, near Lisieux, the home of his great-great-grandson the Comte de Colbert-Laplace burned in 1925 and some had been destroyed earlier, when his house at Arcueil near Paris was looted by house breakers in 1871.〔"Laplace, being Extracts from Lectures delivered by Karl Pearson", ''Biometrika'', vol. 21, December 1929, pp. 202–216.〕 Laplace was born in Beaumont-en-Auge, Normandy on 23 March 1749 at Beaumont-en-Auge, a village four miles west of Pont l'Eveque in Normandy. According to W. W. Rouse Ball,〔W. W. Rouse Ball ''A Short Account of the History of Mathematics'', 4th edition, 1908.〕 His father, Pierre de Laplace, owned and farmed the small estates of Maarquis. His great-uncle, Maitre Oliver de Laplace, had held the title of Chirurgien Royal. It would seem that from a pupil he became an usher in the school at Beaumont; but, having procured a letter of introduction to d'Alembert, he went to Paris to advance his fortune. However, Karl Pearson〔 is scathing about the inaccuracies in Rouse Ball's account and states: His parents were from comfortable families. His father was Pierre Laplace, and his mother was Marie-Anne Sochon. The Laplace family was involved in agriculture until at least 1750, but Pierre Laplace senior was also a cider merchant and ''syndic'' of the town of Beaumont. Pierre Simon Laplace attended a school in the village run at a Benedictine priory, his father intending that he be ordained in the Roman Catholic Church. At sixteen, to further his father's intention, he was sent to the University of Caen to read theology.〔 *, accessed 25 August 2007〕 At the university, he was mentored by two enthusiastic teachers of mathematics, Christophe Gadbled and Pierre Le Canu, who awoke his zeal for the subject. Here Laplace's brilliance as a mathematician was quickly recognised and while still at Caen he wrote a memoir ''Sur le Calcul integral aux differences infinitment petites et aux differences finies''. This provided the first intercourse between Laplace and Lagrange for Lagrange who was the senior by thirteen years , had recently founded in his native city of Turin a journal named ''Miscellanea Taurinensia'', in which many of his other early works were printed and it was in the fourth volume of this series the Laplace's paper appeared. About this time, recognizing that he had no vocation for the priesthood, he determined to become a professional mathematician. In this connexion reference may perhaps be made to the statement, which has appeared in some notices of him, that he broke altogether with the church and became an atheist. Laplace did not graduate in theology but left for Paris with a letter of introduction from Le Canu to Jean le Rond d'Alembert who at that time was supreme in scientific circles.〔〔Edmund Whittaker (Vol. 33, No. 303 (Feb., 1949), pp. 1-12), ("Laplace" ), The Mathematical Gazette.〕 According to his great-great-grandson,〔 d'Alembert received him rather poorly, and to get rid of him gave him a thick mathematics book, saying to come back when he had read it. When Laplace came back a few days later, d'Alembert was even less friendly and did not hide his opinion that it was impossible that Laplace could have read and understood the book. But upon questioning him, he realized that it was true, and from that time he took Laplace under his care. Another version is that Laplace solved overnight a problem that d'Alembert set him for submission the following week, then solved a harder problem the following night. D'Alembert was impressed and recommended him for a teaching place in the ''École Militaire''.〔Gillispie (1997), pp. 3–4〕 With a secure income and undemanding teaching, Laplace now threw himself into original research and in the next seventeen years, 1771–1787, he produced much of his original work in astronomy.〔Rouse Ball (1908)〕 Laplace further impressed the Marquis de Condorcet, and already in 1771 Laplace felt that he was entitled to membership of the French Academy of Sciences. However, in that year, admission went to Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde and in 1772 to Jacques Antoine Joseph Cousin. Laplace was disgruntled, and at the beginning of 1773, d'Alembert wrote to Lagrange in Berlin to ask if a position could be found for Laplace there. However, Condorcet became permanent secretary of the ''Académie'' in February and Laplace was elected associate member on 31 March, at age 24.〔Gillispie (1997), p. 5〕 On 15 March 1788,〔Hahn (2005), p. 99. However, Gillispie (1997), p. 67, gives the month of the marriage as May.〕〔 at the age of thirty-nine, Laplace married Marie-Charlotte de Courty de Romanges, a pretty eighteen-and-a-half-year-old girl from a good family in Besançon.〔Hahn (2005), pp. 99–100〕 The wedding was celebrated at Saint-Sulpice, Paris. The couple had a son, Charles-Émile (1789–1874), and a daughter, Sophie-Suzanne (1792–1813).〔Gillispie (1997), p. 67〕〔Hahn (2005), p. 101〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pierre-Simon Laplace」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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