History
Bayes' theorem was named after the Reverend Thomas Bayes (1701–61), who studied how to compute a distribution for the probability parameter of a binomial distribution (in modern terminology). His friend Richard Price edited and presented this work in 1763, after Bayes' death, as An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances. The French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace reproduced and extended Bayes' results in 1774, apparently quite unaware of Bayes' work. Stephen Stigler suggested in 1983 that Bayes' theorem was discovered by Nicholas Saunderson some time before Bayes. However, this interpretation has been disputed.
Stephen Fienberg describes the evolution from "inverse probability" at the time of Bayes and Laplace, a term still used by Harold Jeffreys (1939), to "Bayesian" in the 1950s. Ironically, Ronald A. Fisher introduced the "Bayesian" label in a derogatory sense.
Read more about this topic: Bayes' Theorem
Famous quotes containing the word history:
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)