The Principle of Sufficient Reason says that every event has a reason or cause in the prior state of the world.
Leibniz imagined a scientist who could see the events of all times, just as all times are thought to be present to the mind of God.
Pierre-Simon Laplace particularized this Leibniz vision as an intelligent being who knows the positions and velocities of all the atoms in the universe and uses Newton's equations of motion to predict the future.
Laplace's Demon has become a cliché for physical determinism.
