nt of the Berlin Academy, proposed the principle of least action as evidence of the infinite wisdom of the Creator. As an early psychopharmacologist, Maupertuis recommended the use of opium to facilitate creative thought and was famously parodied for doing so by Voltaire in his 1752 story in which he is portra

er differential equation, in which differential coefficients are varied to prove the principle of least action for mechanical motion. He gave the law Maupertuis’s name. Mach quoted Euler’s conclusion, “As the construction of the universe is the most perfect possible, being the handiwork of an all-wise Maker,