on determinism (in physics) and chance. Unlike Pierre-Simon de Laplace, who thought that nothing happens by chance, and Aristotle, who thought that randomness and causality had nothing to do which each other, Cournot united the concepts, defining randomness as the encounter of two independent causal series. This definition allows randomness even in perfectly deterministic events, and is used to generate random numbers by the combination of unrelated signals (for instance, temperature and sound). See also Hotelling's linear city model References Further reading For an early 20th century evaluation see: External links "Antoine Augustin Cournot" in New School Profiles 1801 births 1877 deaths 19th-century French economists 19th-century French philosophers People from Gray, Haute-Saône French Roman Catholics 19th-century French mathematicians École Normale Supérieure alumni Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery Mathematical economists 19th-century French male writers