Laplace's demon

In the history of science, Laplace's demon was a notable published articulation of causal determinism on a scientific basis by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814.^[1] According to determinism, if someone (the demon) knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics.^[2]

Discoveries and theories in the decades following suggest that some elements of Laplace's original writing are wrong or incompatible with our universe. For example, irreversible processes in thermodynamics suggest that Laplace's "demon" could not reconstruct past positions and moments from the current state.^{[clarification needed]}