Exposition Du Systéme Du Monde, Manuscript Draft Leaf

LAPLACE, Pierre-Simon (1749–1827). Autograph manuscript from Exposition du systéme du monde . S.l., s.n., not after 1808. Autograph manuscript, s.l., s.n., not after 1808. Writing a new chapter for the 1808 revised edition of Exposition du systéme du monde , on terrestrial/molecular forces. In French. Two pages, 181 x 224mm (some closed tearing at folds). Two-page scientific manuscript from Exposition du systéme du monde on terrestrial/molecular attraction. The present autograph manuscript is a draft of a new chapter for the 1808 third edition, "Revue et augmentée par l'Auteur", centering on the possibility of extending Newtonian gravitation beyond the solar system down to the molecular scale, asking whether cohesion, crystallization, capillary action and the refraction of light might all be manifestations of the same force of gravity acting at microscopic distances. Laplace names the chapter here "Des attractions terrestres" [On terrestrial attractions] but it appears in 1808 edition as "De l'attraction moléculaire" [On molecular attraction]. This new chapter expands upon a notion briefly referenced in the 1789 first edition, in Chapter XV (on universal gravitation). Laplace notes that "La force attractive disparoît entre les corps d’une grandeur peu considérable" [The attractive force disappears between bodies of considerable size: it reappears in their elements, under an infinity of different forms] before listing phenomena like capillary action, chemical combinations and light refraction, and asking: "Ces forces sont- elles la gravitation même observée dans les espaces célestes, et modifiée sur la terre, par la figure des molécules intégrantes ?" [Are these forces the very same gravitation observed in the celestial spaces, merely modified on earth by the shape of the constituent molecules?]. That notion is the first sentence of the new chapter present here. Laplace wrote his influential Exposition du systéme du monde as a non-mathematical discussion of his architecture of the solar system for a general audience—a sort of earlier companion volume for his highly-technical Traité de mecanique celeste first published from 1799 to 1825. The works codify and develop "the theories of his processors, notably Newton, Euler, d'Alembert and of his contemporary Lagrange" (PMM 252). Laplace is often called the Newton of France. Cf. Norman 1277; PMM 252.

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