Laplace's Demon: An Interview Through Time

Math Science History with Gabrielle Birchak

Episode Overview:

In this special time-travel episode of Math, Science, History, Gabrielle steps back into the Enlightenment to interview legendary French mathematician and philosopher Pierre-Simon Laplace. Together, they explore the bold ideas behind his famed thought experiment, Laplace’s Demon, a being capable of predicting the entire past and future of the universe. But how does that vision hold up in the age of quantum mechanics and artificial intelligence?

Through immersive storytelling, direct quotes from Laplace’s writings, and modern scientific context, this episode invites listeners to examine the nature of certainty, probability, free will, and machine intelligence, and ask the ultimate question: Is AI today the digital version of Laplace’s Demon? In This Episode, You'll Learn:

How Laplace envisioned a fully deterministic universe—and why he believed uncertainty was only a matter of ignorance.

How chaos theory and quantum mechanics challenged that deterministic view.

Why today’s artificial intelligence reflects both the dreams and the limits of Laplace’s Demon.

Resources and Laplace’s Writings:

📘 A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities (English translation): https://archive.org/embed/aphilosophicale00laplgoog

🌐 Brief biography and overview from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laplace/

AI voices by ElevenLabs. Try it out for your projects! My affiliate link is here: https://try.elevenlabs.io/qhh6dk0ikse6

🔗 Explore more on our website: mathsciencehistory.com 📚 To buy my book Hypatia: The Sum of Her Life on Amazon, visit https://a.co/d/g3OuP9h

🌍 Let’s Connect!

Website: mathsciencehistory.com Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mathsciencehistory.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/math.science.history

🎧 Enjoying the Podcast?

If you love Math, Science, History, here’s how you can help:🌟 Leave a review – It helps more people discover the show!📢 Share this episode with friends & fellow history buffs!🔔 Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform

☕ Support the Show: Coffee!! https://shorturl.at/bHIsc

🛍 Checking out our merch: https://www.mathsciencehistory.com/the-store

🎵 Music: All music is public domain and has no Copyright and no rights reserved. Selections from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers

Until next time, carpe diem!