Probability
Published on Nov 21, 2015
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
How did probability begin?
- Technically was first discovered by Jerome Cardan
- Credited to Blaise Pascal and Pierre Fermat
Although it was first discovered by Jerome Cardan, it was lost until it was published in 1663, opening a door for independent study. Because of this, Pascal and Fermat are often credited for being the first people to really look into probability.
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Roles of Blaise Pascal and Pierre Fermat
- Came up with the fundamental groundwork of the theory of probability
- They did this while contemplating a gambling problem asked
- This question was asked by Antoine Gombard
- Question asked pertained to:
- the # of turns required to ensure getting a 6 in the roll of 2 dice
The correspondence between the question asked and the problem of points led to the beginning of new concepts. Gambling led to the question asked. Antoine Gombard can also be called by the name Chevalier de Mere.
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Role of Jerome Cardan
- First recorded evidence of probability theory
- Recorded in 1550
- It was lost
- If it was not lost, he'd be credited
- It was not discovered until 1576 or printed until 1663
He was a physician, mathematician, astrologer, philosopher and gambler. His found works fill 7,000 pages! He had a troubling childhood. At 19, he entered the University of Pavia to study medicine.
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Role of Jerome Cardan (cont...)
- His insights were recorded in a work of 15 pages
- Calls this book "Liber de Ludo Aleae"
- That also means "The Book on Games of Chance"
- In this, he addressed the probability of certain outcomes in:
- rolls of dice, the problem of points, and gave a crude definition
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Some History of Probability
- At first it went against Greek philosophy and early Christian theology
- it went against their nature to suppose that random events could be quantified in any useful fashion
- Knowledge to them, was not something that should be derived by experimentation
- It was better to reason out a question logically than to search for its explanation in a set of numerical observations
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Some History of Probability (cont...)
- For the early Christians, there was no such thing as chance.
- Every event was perceived to be a direct manifestation of Gods deliberate intervention.
- They believed their gods to be either unable or unwilling to get involved in matters so mundane as the outcome of the roll of a die.
- St. Augustine said:
- "We say that those causes that are said to be by chance are not nonexistent but are hidden, and we attribute them to the will of the true God"
Nothing of significance was accomplished in the subject for the next fifteen hundred years. Probability got off to a rocky start because of its incompatibility with two of the most dominant forces in the evolution of our Western culture: Greek philosophy and early Christian theology.
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