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| Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1829) Picture 1 |
When the mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace and Napoleon Bonaparte met the Emperor of France said, that there were no mentions of the god in Laplace’s papers. And the scientist answered that he didn’t need that calculation. I think that Napoleon was not interested in the god or mathematics when he met Laplace. The thing what interested this man, who became the figure of excellent tactician and military leader was something that was drawn in the papers of Laplace.
That thing was the points, what were drawn on those papers, and the way how Laplace could calculate them in the paper. If Simon Laplace could do the same thing for the artillery, French army will have the most lethal cannons on the battlefield. For many people, those points on the paper were nothing more than just the points. But as we must see, Napoleon saw those things by the different way, he saw a very effective way to use artillery.
Those calculations what made the finding of planet Neptune possible were known as the mechanics of heaven. The idea of the celestial mechanics was that Universum is a very stable place, where all particles move stable trajectories. This made possible that the movements of the particles can be calculated very sharply
The planets are found near the ballistical area of the sky, what is called as elliptical, and there is possible to calculate the point, where the planet will be fine with very good sharpness. Problem with the celestial mechanics is that will work only in the universe, there is no wind to disturb the planets, and if the conditions are the same kind in the Earth atmosphere than they are in the empty space, we could calculate every flight trajectory same way, what the astronomers used to calculate the points of Neptune.
The thing is actually possible on the Earth if those calculations were involved more values, what will help in that calculation. First one is the side wind or the position where the wind comes, the second one is the temperature, the third one is the air pressure, fourth value is the humidity because the air what has particles will cause the changing of the ballistic situations. The sharpness of those calculations depends on how many vectors and values quantities could the mathematician involve the formula, what calculates the point, where the ballistic form ends, and those things were interested in Napoleon, who wanted to take the control all the Europe.
Sources:
Picture 1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace
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