Pierre-Simon Laplace.

Pierre-Simon Laplace (pronounced "lah-PLAHS") was born in Beaumont-en-Auge in Normandy on March 23, 1979. His father, Pierre, was a business agent for the parish and was also in the cider business. His mother, Marie-Anne Sochen, came from a prosperous farm family. Laplace attended a local Benedictine school from the age of seven to sixteen and then enrolled at the University of Caen. Following his father's wishes, Laplace began studying for a career with the church, but his interests eventually took him into mathematics. At age nineteen, he left for Paris with a letter of recommendation to Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, one of the foremost mathematicians of the day. According to tradition, d'Alembert presented Laplace with a mathematical problem and told him to come back in a week. Instead, Laplace returned with the solution the next day. D'Alembert presented him with a second problem, and the results were the same. D'Alembert not only became Laplace's mentor but also secured an appointment for him as a professor of mathematics at the École Militaire in Paris. After only five years in Paris, Laplace won election to the Académie des Sciences. The academy's secretary wrote that never had it received so many important papers on such varied and difficult topics in such short time from so young a candidate. Laplace had submitted thirteen papers on such diverse topics as adapting integral calculus to the solution of difference equations, the mathematics of chance and games, and problems of mathematical astronomy. INSET: Pierre-Simon Laplace.