Probability and Statistics

Abstract

In my original draft this chapter was called “Applications”, but I have already said so much about applications in various contexts earlier on in the book, that an attempt at completeness would mean a lot of repetition. I would not claim, however, that I have exhausted the subject. I mentioned linear programming only briefly, while numerical methods have only been tackled now and then. Computers alone would have merited a chapter, but this would have been better written by my colleagues on the lower floors who have experimented with computers at school, than by the present author who has never visited a class working in this field.

Je vois bien que la vérité est la môme à Toulouse et à Paris.

Calcul des Probabilités. Première Leçon. 1. L’on ne peut guère donner une définition satisfaisante de la Probabilité…

Le calcul des probabilités offre une contradiction dans les termes qui servent à le désigner, et, si je ne craignais de rappeler ici un mot trop souvent répété, je dirais qu’il nous enseigne surtout une chose: c’est de savoir que nous ne savons rien. Fin.

They say that Understanding ought to work by the rules of right reason. These rules are, or ought to be, contained in Logic; but the actual science of logic is conversant at present only with things either certain, impossible, or entirely doubtful, none of which (fortunately) we have to reason on. Therefore the true logic for this world is the calculus of Probabilities, which takes account of the magnitude of the probability which is, or ought to be, in a reasonable man’s mind.

Eudoxe —Cet argument me touche; je me déciderai peut-être à écrire un jour l’Eloge du Jeu.

Lettre de Pascal à Fermât, 29 juillet 1654

H. Poincaré, Calcul des Probabilités, 1896, p. 1, p. 274

J. Clerk Maxwell

E. Borel, Traité du Calcul des Probabilités et de ses Applications IV, fasc. 3, 2nd éd., 1952

An extract of this chapter has already been published in: The Teaching of Probability and Statistics, Stockholm 1970, Almqvist & Wicksell.