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Awakening the Whole World

08:38 / 19.03.04

I'm trying to trace the origin of the following Latin sentence:

"Et digitum minimum movere non potes ut non mundum universum excites."
(Roughly, 'You can't move your little finger, lest you awaken the whole world.')

I stumbled across this on a Russian website (http://giscraft.ru/methods/method8.shtml). The authors of the site are convinved that the words are those of Pierre-Simon Laplace, a mathematician with strong deterministic beliefs who wrote during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see here for a short bio: http://www.mathematicianspictures.com/Mathematicians/Laplace.htm).

None of the Laplace scholars whom I've consulted (Andrew Dale, Robert Fox, Ivor Grattan-Guinness, Roger Hahn and Stephen Stigler) recognise the sentence though, and point out that, apart from a couple of very early (purely mathematical) works he never actually wrote in Latin.

My question then: does anyone know who DID suggest that it might be unwise to lift one's little finger? Or, failing that, can anyone recommend a forum (Classics? History of Science?) where I might post another request for help?

Many thanks.

15:05 / 22.03.04

It kind of baffles me -- what exactly did LaPlace (if it really was him) mean?

You can try posting the question in the "Random Q&A" topic in the Conversation and see if Barbelith's Big Brain Collective delivers an answer.
Oh, and you might want to check that "Help" link up at the top of the screen for making links. the syntax is [a href="http://www.dotcom.com" target="_BLANK"]www.dotcom.com[/a] only with < brackets instead of [ brackets.

06:54 / 23.03.04

Well, that's a good question. I'm hoping that the context (if I ever find it) will make this clear. Laplace is well known as a bit of a determinist, so my guess is that he is suggesting that the movement of even the smallest, most insignificant part of the world will have a 'knock-on' effect elsewhere. But if the words aren't originally his, as I suspect, then they were probably originally used to some different end altogether...

I'll post the query in "Random Q&A" as you suggest, and use hmtl this time (hadn't realised it was enabled). Thanks a lot.

13:10 / 11.04.04

maybe he means any action the individual takes without being sufficiently aware of the superorganism,it's needs and your place in it.'like a hand scared of it's own fingers' paraphrasing xavier at the end of riot.if you don't tap into the excitement of the entire world,you're twiddling your clumsy thumbs.