"Maxwell probably first encountered Quetelet in an article by... John Herschel... (...familiar with Quetelet as a fellow astronomer). Later, in 1857, Maxwell read a newly published book by... Henry Thomas Buckle. Buckle, himself clearly influenced by Quetelet, believed that science could discover the "laws of the human mind" and that human actions are a part of "one vast system of universal order." ...Though Maxwell found Buckle's book "bumptious," he recognized it as a source of original ideas, and the statistical reasoning Buckle applied to society seemed just the thing... needed to deal with molecular motion."
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StatisticiansCriminologistsMathematicians from BelgiumAstronomers from BelgiumSociologists from Belgium
Original Language: English
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Sources
Tom Siegfried, A Beautiful Math (2006) Ch. 7: Quetelet's Statistics and Maxwell's Molecules, pp. 136-138.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Adolphe_Quetelet
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Adolphe Quetelet
Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (or Quételet) (22 February 1796 – 17 February 1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He founded and directed the Brussels Observatory and was perpetual secretary of the Royal Academy of Brussels. Quetelet was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences.
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