Laplace

Since every planet is attracted not only by the Sun but also (much more weakly) by all the other planets, its orbit cannot really be the simple ellipse described by Kepler. Newton was therefore willing to entertain the idea that God might occasionally need to readjust the planetary system. In the 18th century new mathematical methods were developed, largely in France, to treat perturbations more efficiently. The key figures in this work were Joseph-Louis Lagrange and Pierre-Simon Laplace. They showed that the solar system is inherently quite stable. Each planet is perturbed by the others, but the net result is only oscillatory corrections to the unperturbed orbits; there are no runaway behaviours. God would not need to intervene after all.

Laplace is known mainly for his densely mathematical Traité de mécanique céleste (A Treatise of Celestial Mechanics; 5 vol., 1798–1825), but he was also the author of a work of popularization, the Exposition du système du monde (The System of the World), which appeared in several editions between 1796 and 1824. In this work Laplace explained for the lay reader all the phenomena of the solar system in terms of universal gravitation. This was followed by a brief history of astronomy from ancient times down to Laplace’s own day. The book ended with a brief account of what is now called Laplace’s nebular hypothesis, a theory of the origin of the solar system. Laplace imagined that the planets had condensed from the primitive solar atmosphere, which originally extended far beyond the limits of the present-day system. As this cloud gradually contracted under the effects of gravity, it first formed rings and then amalgamated into planets. Newton had seen in the regularities of the solar system a sure sign of the wisdom and beneficence of the Creator. For example, the fact that all the planets travel around the Sun in the same direction and more or less in the same plane could be explained only by divine providence. Laplace, looking at the same facts, instead regarded them as evidence about the prehistory of the solar system. The nebular hypothesis, although only sketchily worked out, was important as an early example of an evolutionary theory in natural science, and it is notable that evolutionary thinking entered astronomy before it became important in the life sciences.