Front cover image for A history of probability and statistics and their applications before 1750

A history of probability and statistics and their applications before 1750

Anders Hald
The first treatment of the early development of probability and statistics since Todhunter's History appeared in 1865. The present book describes the contemporaneous development and interaction of probability theory (and games of chance), statistics (particularly in astronomy and demography) and life insurance mathematics. Illustrates the development of the practice by means of typical examples, giving both the original data and their analysis at the time, and adding some comments from a modern point of view. To read and enjoy this intellectual history, the reader need know but little statistics or mathematics, for the presentation is relatively self-contained. This unique book evokes the life and works of the great natural philosophers who contributed to the development of probability theory and statistics and offers fascinating background material on the history of mathematics, natural philosophy and social conditions of the eras under discussion
Print Book, English, ©1990
Wiley, New York, ©1990
History
xiii, 586 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
9780471502302, 0471502308
19629739
1. The Book and Its Relation to Other Works
2. A Sketch of the Background in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy
3. Early Concepts of Probability and Chance
4. Cardano and Liber de Ludo Aleae, c. 1565
5. The Foundation of Probability Theory by Pascal and Fermat in 1654
6. Huygens and De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae, 1657
7. John Graunt and the Observations Made upon the Bills of Morality, 1662
8. The Probabilistic Interpretation of Graunt's Life Table
9. The Early History of Life Insurance Mathematics
10. Mathematical Models and Statistical Methods in Astronomy from Hipparchus to Kepler and Galileo
11. The Newtonian Revolution in Mathematics and Science
12. Miscellaneous Contributions between 1675 and 1708
13. The great Leap forward, 1708-1718: A Survey
14. New Solutions to Old Problems
15. James Bernoulli and Ars Conjectanda, 1713
16. Bernoulli's Theorem
17. Tests of Significance Based on other Sex Ratio at Birth and the Binomial Distribution, 1712-1713
18. Montmort and the Essay d' Analyse sur kes Jeux de Hazard, 1708 and 1713
19. The Problem of Coincidences and the Compound Probability Theorem
20. The Problem of the Duration of Play, 1708-1718
21. Nicholas Bernoulli
22. De Moivre and the Doctrine of Chances, 1718, 1736, and 1756
23. The Problem of the Duration of Play and the Method of Difference Equations
24. De Moivre's Normal Approximation to the Binomial Distribution
25. The Insurance Mathematics of de Moivre and Simpson, 1725-1756
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