It is hard for me to not get reminded of one of the wittiest anecdotes from the history of scientific thought – the conversation documented by British mathematician Walter Ball between the mathematician and cosmologist Pierre Simon Laplace and the French monarch Napoleon Bonaparte – the Laplace Napoleon Anecdote, as it is known. Laplace, after being patronised by the then monarch Napoleon Bonaparte, produced a six-volume work titled ‘Celestial Mechanics’. As a gesture of gratitude towards his patron, Laplace decided to present the first copy of book to Napoleon. Napoleon had been told that there was no mention of God in any of the six books. Napoleon, in an eventually futile effort to embarrass Laplace, asked him how he could write books about the Universe without mentioning its creator. Laplace, a mind committed to the project of Enlightenment, responded “Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.” ['I had no need of that hypothesis.']