Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
6 February 2010
Despite the fame of Laplace's Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, it is not in fact a very original work. The classical interpretation of probability emerged from discussion in the period roughly from 1650 to 1800, which saw the introduction which saw the introduction and development of the mathematical theory of probability. Most of the ideas of the classical theory are to be found in Part IV of Jacob Bernoulli's Ars Conjectandi, published in 1713, and Bernoulli had discussed these ideas in correspondence with Leibniz. Nonethless, it was Laplace's essay which introduced the ideas of the classical interpretation of probability to mathematicians and philosophers in the nineteenth century. This may simply have been because Laplace's essay was written in French and Bernoulli's's Ars Conjectandi in Latin, a language which was becoming increasingly unreadable by scientists and mathematicians in the nineteenth century.
Philosophical Theories of Probability
Ch 1 §1 (p3)
[…] Laplace generalised and improved the results of his predecessors — particularly those of Bernoulli, De Moivre and Bayes. His massive Théorie analytique des Probabilitiés, published in 1812, was the summary of more than a century and a half of mathematical research together with important developments by the author. This book established probability theory as no longer a minority interest but rather a major branch of mathematics.
Philosophical Theories of Probability
Ch 1 §2 (p8)
Essai philosophique sur les probabilitiés was published a couple of years after Théorie analytique des probabilitiés, as a popular introduction to that earlier work. Objecting that Essai is not in fact a very original work
, given that Théorie was the summary of more than a century and a half of mathematical research together with important developments by the author
, is a bit absurd.
An editor should have brought this dissonance to Gillies' attention. I don't quite know what editors do these days, beyond deciding whether a given work may be expected to sell.
Tags: editing, Laplace, probability
I wonder, sir, if there is a mathematical statistic correlating how the few control so much for so many?
I am referring to editors and other media moguls who graciously filter reality and feed the public only what they deem worthy...
How many geniuses are being stifled and forced into a narrow box?
All because they see a vision that most cannot understand.
The media tells us conformity is king...we all surely want to own the latest fad gadget or newest album /movie/etc in order to 'fit in'...true individuality is rare. Too many of us have been raised on this pablum and have acquired a fondness for it.
Spoon fed TV sound-bites cannot replace experience, and that is true knowledge.
I'm sure I am drifting off your topic, but that's what I thought of.
There are various formulæ that attempt to measure concentration of economic resources (including information and entertainment) and various theories that attempt to explain or to predict such concentration. I've not run across a measure or a formal theory that I find satisfying.
I think that there are useful informal theories that invoke things such as economies of scale, exertion of political power, and indeed cultivation of social bonds (). I believe that the trend of the last few decades has been for the first two to decline in significance.