Allen Downey, in his Think Complexity (2012), begins a famous passage written by Pierre-Simon Marquis of Laplace, in which the French scientist, inspired by his discoveries in mathematics and astronomy, argues that “the present state of the universe can be considered as the effect of its past and the cause of its future”. For Laplace, an “intellect” aware of “all the forces that set in motion the nature”, “of the positions of all objects whose nature is composed” well, for such an intellect, “wide to suffice to be able to analyze all these data”, “nothing would be uncertain and the future, just like the past, would be evident in his eyes”.