Pierre-Simon Laplace
In Our Time8 Apr 2021

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Laplace (1749-1827) who was a giant in the world of mathematics both before and after the French Revolution. He addressed one of the great questions of his age, raised but side-stepped by Newton: was the Solar System stable, or would the planets crash into the Sun, as it appeared Jupiter might, or even spin away like Saturn threatened to do? He advanced ideas on probability, long the preserve of card players, and expanded them out across science; he hypothesised why the planets rotate in the same direction; and he asked if the Universe was deterministic, so that if you knew everything about all the particles then you could predict the future. He also devised the metric system and reputedly came up with the name 'metre'. With

Marcus du Sautoy Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford

Timothy Gowers Professor of Mathematics at the College de France

And

Colva Roney-Dougal Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(1093)

The Garamantes

The Garamantes

Misha Glenny and guests discuss an ancient civilisation who lived over 2000 years ago in the southwest of modern-day Libya. During prehistoric times, the Sahara Desert was greener and even had large l...

11 Jun 57min

Joseph Roth

Joseph Roth

Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the great writers on Central Europe after the first world war and on the dying of the old orders with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As a German s...

4 Jun 55min

Cybernetics

Cybernetics

Misha Glenny and guests discuss cybernetics – the field of study which gave us the prefix ‘cyber’ and helped lay the foundations for the information age. After the Second World War, cybernetics emerge...

28 Mai 52min

Indian Indentured Labour

Indian Indentured Labour

Misha Glenny and guests discuss how, after the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833, sugar planters recruited workers from India to replace or compete with their formerly enslaved labour...

21 Mai 51min

M.C. Escher

M.C. Escher

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the work of Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), the graphic artist and printmaker best known for his impossible buildings, paradoxical perspectives, and repeating geom...

14 Mai 55min

Handel's Messiah

Handel's Messiah

Misha Glenny and his guests discuss the most famous oratorio of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and his librettist Charles Jennens (1700-1773). For his libretto, Jennens drew from Old and New Test...

7 Mai 54min

The Spanish-American War 1898

The Spanish-American War 1898

Misha Glenny and guests discuss a turning point in world affairs in 1898 that left Spain greatly reduced as an imperial power and the US the owner of the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico, with a sign...

30 Apr 55min

Silicon

Silicon

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the physics, biology and chemistry of the element silicon which is at the heart of some of the most useful and beautiful objects on the planet. While it is still being...

23 Apr 52min

Populært innen Historie

med-egne-oyne
rss-dette-ma-aldri-skje-igjen
henrettelsespodden
historier-som-endret-norge
vare-historier
rss-benadet
historier-som-endret-verden
sektledere
aftenposten-historie
rss-nadelose-nordmenn-gestapo
rss-gamle-greier
rss-frontkjemperne
historiepodden
rss-katastrofe
rss-historier-fra-gudbrandsdalen
rss-bisarr-historie
taakeprat
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
liberal-halvtime
rss-politisk-preik