Orbis non sufficit
Monday, October 06, 2008
Efficiency
"The laws of movement and of rest deduced from this principle being precisely the same as those observed in nature, we can admire the application of it to all phenomena. The movement of animals, the vegetative growth of plants ... are only its consequences; and the spectacle of the universe becomes so much the grander, so much more beautiful, the worthier of its Author, when one knows that a small number of laws, most wisely established, suffice for all movements"
-Pierre Louis Maupertuis, 1744, referring to the principle that "Nature is thrifty in all its actions", more modernly known as the principle of least action.
"The laws of movement and of rest deduced from this principle being precisely the same as those observed in nature, we can admire the application of it to all phenomena. The movement of animals, the vegetative growth of plants ... are only its consequences; and the spectacle of the universe becomes so much the grander, so much more beautiful, the worthier of its Author, when one knows that a small number of laws, most wisely established, suffice for all movements"
-Pierre Louis Maupertuis, 1744, referring to the principle that "Nature is thrifty in all its actions", more modernly known as the principle of least action.
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