PIERRE-SIMON LAPLACE

1749 - 1827
Salam Saleh Alnabulsi
Department of Mathematics and
Statistics
Pierre-Simon Laplace
 Outline
 Introduction
 His Life
 Education
 His work
 His death
 Achievement ( Mathematics
and Astronomy )
 Examples


 Introduction
 Great French mathematician
and astronomer .
 Known as Newton of France .
 His name is also connected
with the “ Laplace transform ”
and with the “ Laplace
expansion ” .
 He is one of the first
scientists to postulate the
existence of black holes.
 He is one of only seventy - two
people to have their name
engraved on Eiffel Tower.
 His Life
 Born March 23 , 1749 in Beaumont -
en - Auge , Normandy , France
 Father wanted him to get
involved in the Church
 The Laplace family was involved
in agriculture until at least
1750 .
 Laplace married on May 15 , 1788
at the age of 39
 They had two children .

 Education
 Went to school from age 7 - 16
 Age of 16 : began study at
Caen University where two
professors discovered his
mathematical talent and
awoke his zeal for the
subject .
 Laplace never graduated ,
but left for Paris with a
letter of introduction
from his professer to Jean
 Education
 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
 His work
 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 .
 To make money , D'Alembert
recommended him for a teaching
place in the École Militaire.
 1784 : appointed as examiner at
the Royal Artillery Corps
 Because of this job , he became
well - known to the ministers of
 Laplace’s Death


 Laplace died on March

5 , 1827 in Paris


 Achievements
 Solar systems , He 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.
 He summarized and extended the work of
his predecessors in his five volume (
Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825).
 Probability and Statistics :
 Bayes’ Theorem
 Solar systems
 Laplace developed the nebular hypothesis
of the formation of the solar system
 According to Laplace's description of the
hypothesis, the solar system had evolved
from a globular mass of shining gas
rotating around an axis through its
centre of mass.
 As it cooled, this mass contracted, and
successive rings broke off from its
outer edge. These rings in their turn
cooled, and finally condensed into the
planets
 Laplace predicted that the more
distant planets would be older
than those nearer the sun .

 Black hole
 Laplace also came close to the
concept of the black hole. He
pointed out that there could be
massive stars whose gravity is so
great that not even light could
escape from their surface.
 Probability and Statistics
 In Statistics he worked on many
probability problems including the
Laplace distribution: he is credited
with independently discovering
Bayes's Theorem .
 Responsible for current form of Bayes
Theorem
 Philosophy of Probability :
``Probability is basically good
sense, reduced to a calculus."
problem and the principle of the solution . The theo
Differential equations

He formulated Laplace's e

Laplacian
differential operator
 Laplace transform

 Laplace's equation
 Is a second-order partial
differential equation named after
Pierre-Simon Laplace who first
studied its2 properties. This is
∇ Φas=: 0
often written

∇ 2
Φ
 where is the Laplace
operator and is a scalar
function.
 Laplace's equation and Poisson's
equation are the simplest examples
of elliptic partial differential
 Laplace operator
 The Laplace operator is a second order
differential operator in the n-
dimensional Euclidean space, defined
as the divergence (∇·) of the
gradient (∇ƒ). Thus if ƒ is a
twice-differentiable real-valued
function, then
2 the Laplacian of ƒ is
∆f =by∇ f = ∇.∇f
defined
 Laplace Transform


 As early as 1744, Euler, followed by

Lagrange, had started looking for
solutions of differential equations
in the form:


 In 1785, Laplace took the key forward
step in using integrals of this form
in order to transform a whole
difference equation, rather than
simply as a form for the solution,
 Definition of Laplace Transform
 Laplace transform used to convert a
problem for an unknown function f
into a simpler problem for F, solve
for F, and then recover f from
its transform F.
 It has many important applications
in
 mathematics, physics, optics,
electrical engineering,
 control engineering, signal
processing, and probability
 theory.
 Time-domain Laplace s-domain
ODE problems algebra problems
Transform
Difficult (LT) Easy

Solutions of time- Inverse Solutions of algebra

domain problems problems
LT
Laplace transform Algebraic Eqn
Inverse Laplace transform Soln. to IVP
 The Laplace Transform
 Given a known function K(s,t), an integral
transform of a function f is a relation
of the
β form
 F (s) = ∫α K ( s, t ) f (t )dt , ∞ ≤ α <β ≤ ∞

 Let f be a function defined for t  0, and
satisfies certain conditions
 The Laplace Transform
∞
of f is defined as
 L{ f (t )} = F ( s ) = ∫ e − st f (t )dt
0


 Thus the kernel function is K(s,t) = e-st .
 Note that the Laplace Transform is defined
by an improper integral, and thus must be
checked for convergence.
 Conditions on f(x)

 Suppose that f is a function for

which the following hold:
 (1 ) f is piecewise continuous
on [0, b] for all b > 0.
 (2) | f ( t ) |  Ke at when t  M, for
constants a, K, M, with K, M > 0.
 Then the Laplace Transform of f
exists
L{ f (t )} = Ffor
( s ) = ∫ se >f (t )adt. finite
∞

0
− st



 Note: A function f that satisfies
 Properties of Laplace
Transforms
 Linearity
 Scaling in time
 Time shift
 “frequency” or s-plane shift
 Multiplication by tn
 Differentiation
perties: Linearity
L{c1 f1 (t ) + c2 f 2 (t )} = c1 F1 ( s ) + c2 F2 ( s )

Properties: Scaling in
TimeL{ f (at )} = 1 F ( s )
a a

Properties: Time
Shift
L{ f (t − t 0 )u (t − t 0 )} = e − st 0
F ( s)
Properties: S-plane


(frequency
− at
) shift
L{e f (t )} = F ( s + a )
Properties:
Multiplication
n
by tn
n n d
L{t f (t )} = (−1) n
F (s)
ds
Properties:
Derivatives +
L{Df (t )} = sF ( s ) − f (0 )
f(t) F(s) f(t) F(s)
δ(t) 1 w
sinw t s 2 +w2
1(t) 1 s
s
cosw t s 2 +w2
t 1 − at w
e sinw t (s + a) 2 + w 2
s2
− at 1 s +a
e s+a
− at
e cosw t
( s + a) 2 + w2
Use of Laplace Transform in solving
ODE

Differential Equation Laplace

Transfor
Algebraic Equation
m

x′(t ) + 2 x(t ) = 0, x(0) = 1 ⇒ sX ( s ) − 1 + 2 X ( s ) = 0

⇓
− 2t 1
x(t ) = e ⇐ X (s) =
s+2
Solution of the Inverse
Solution of the
Differential Equation Laplace
transform Algebraic Equation
 References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_equation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace_transform#History

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Laplace.html

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Laplace.html