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A bit off topic: I always wondered how people Laplace and his likes made a living. How could he think about these things and get through life? does anyone know?
by baxtr 6y ago
A bit off topic: I always wondered how people Laplace and his likes made a living. How could he think about these things and get through life? does anyone know?
- stan_rogers 6y agoLike most of the "great minds" of the age, he was a gentleman scientist. That is, he came from some wealth that was mostly self-maintaining (in his case, family agricultural holdings - not super-rich, but not having to make his own living either). After Napoleon, he was promoted to middling nobility with all of the privileges that entails.
- waheoo 6y agoI don't understand the quotes here. Are you saying rich people can't have great minds? Or are you saying they had it easy? If so, whats your point? Its a bit like saying Jeff Bezos, bill gates, Steve jobs and others are all a product of the time. I'm not going to say they're not, but that doesn't make their achievements any less great to me.
- tejohnso 6y agoQuotes don't always imply a negative connotation. Could simply mean to call attention to a common phrase, with the typical colloquial meaning intended.
- waheoo 6y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace According to his great-great-grandson,[4] 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 realised that it was true, and from that time he took Laplace under his care. Another account 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.[8] With a secure income and undemanding teaching, Laplace now threw himself into original research and for the next seventeen years, 1771–1787, he produced much of his original work in astronomy.[9]