I have another mathematics-themed podcast to share. It’s again from the BBC’s In Our Time, a 50-minute program in which three experts discuss a topic. Here they came back around to mathematics and physics. And along the way chemistry and mensuration. The topic here was Pierre-Simon Laplace, who’s one of those people whose name you learn well as a mathematics or physics major. He doesn’t quite reach the levels of Euler — who does? — but he’s up there.
Laplace might be best known for his work in celestial mechanics. He (independently of Immanuel Kant) developed the nebular hypothesis, that the solar system formed from the contraction of a great cloud of dust. We today accept a modified version of this. And for studying the question of whether the solar system is stable. That is, whether the perturbations every planet has on one another average out to nothing, or to something catastrophic. And studying probability, which has more to do with these questions than one might imagine. And then there’s general mechanics, and differential equations, and if that weren’t enough, his role in establishing the Metric system. This and more gets discussion.
nebusresearch 
One thought on “In Our Time podcast has episode on Pierre-Simon Laplace”