A Short History of Probability

"A gambler's dispute in 1654 led to the creation of a mathematical theory of probability by
two famous French mathematicians, Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat. Antoine Gombaud,
Chevalier de Mr, a French nobleman with an interest in gaming and gambling questions,
called Pascal's attention to an apparent contradiction concerning a popular dice game. The
game consisted in throwing a pair of dice 24 times; the problem was to decide whether or not
to bet even money on the occurrence of at least one "double six" during the 24 throws. A
seemingly well-established gambling rule led de Mr to believe that betting on a double six
in 24 throws would be profitable, but his own calculations indicated just the opposite.
This problem and others posed by de Mr led to an exchange of letters between Pascal and
Fermat in which the fundamental principles of probability theory were formulated for the first
time. Although a few special problems on games of chance had been solved by some Italian
mathematicians in the 15th and 16th centuries, no general theory was developed before this
famous correspondence.
The Dutch scientist Christian Huygens, a teacher of Leibniz, learned of this correspondence
and shortly thereafter (in 1657) published the first book on probability; entitled De
Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae, it was a treatise on problems associated with gambling. Because of
the inherent appeal of games of chance, probability theory soon became popular, and the
subject developed rapidly during the 18th century. The major contributors during this period
were Jakob Bernoulli (1654-1705) and Abraham de Moivre (1667-1754).
In 1812 Pierre de Laplace (1749-1827) introduced a host of new ideas and mathematical
techniques in his book, Thorie Analytique des Probabilits. Before Laplace, probability
theory was solely concerned with developing a mathematical analysis of games of chance.
Laplace applied probabilistic ideas to many scientific and practical problems. The theory of
errors, actuarial mathematics, and statistical mechanics are examples of some of the
important applications of probability theory developed in the l9th century.
Like so many other branches of mathematics, the development of probability theory has been
stimulated by the variety of its applications. Conversely, each advance in the theory has
enlarged the scope of its influence. Mathematical statistics is one important branch of applied
probability; other applications occur in such widely different fields as genetics, psychology,
economics, and engineering. Many workers have contributed to the theory since Laplace's
time; among the most important are Chebyshev, Markov, von Mises, and Kolmogorov.
One of the difficulties in developing a mathematical theory of probability has been to arrive
at a definition of probability that is precise enough for use in mathematics, yet comprehensive
enough to be applicable to a wide range of phenomena. The search for a widely acceptable
definition took nearly three centuries and was marked by much controversy. The matter was
finally resolved in the 20th century by treating probability theory on an axiomatic basis. In
1933 a monograph by a Russian mathematician A. Kolmogorov outlined an axiomatic
approach that forms the basis for the modern theory. (Kolmogorov's monograph is available
in English translation as Foundations of Probability Theory, Chelsea, New York, 1950.)
Since then the ideas have been refined somewhat and probability theory is now part of a more
general discipline known as measure theory."

Concepts of probability have been around for thousands of years, but probability theory did
not arise as a branch of mathematics until the mid-seventeenth century. During the fifteenth
century several probability works emerged. Calculations of probabilities became more
noticeable during this time period even though mathematicians in Italy and France remained
unfamiliar with these calculation methods (David, 1962). In 1494, Fra Luca Paccioli wrote
the first printed work on probability, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni e
proportionalita (David, 1962). In 1550, Geronimo Cardano inspired by the Summa wrote a
book about games of chance called Liber de Ludo Aleae which means A Book on Games of
Chance (David, 1962).
In the mid-seventeenth century, a simple question directed to Blaise Pascal by a nobleman
sparked the birth of probability theory, as we know it today. Chevalier de Mr gambled
frequently to increase his wealth. He bet on a roll of a die that at least one 6 would appear
during a total of four rolls. From past experience, he knew that he was more successful than
not with this game of chance. Tired of his approach, he decided to change the game. He bet
that he would get a total of 12, or a double 6, on twenty-four rolls of two dice. Soon he
realized that his old approach to the game resulted in more money. He asked his friend
Blaise Pascal why his new approach was not as profitable. Pascal worked through the
problem and found that the probability of winning using the new approach was only 49.1
percent compared to 51.8 percent using the old approach
This problem proposed by Chevalier de Mr is said be the start of famous
correspondence between Pascal and Pierre de Fermat. They continued to exchange their
thoughts on mathematical principles and problems through a series of letters. Historians
think that the first letters written were associated with the above problem and other problems
dealing with probability theory. Therefore, Pascal and Fermat are the mathematicians
credited with the founding of probability theory (David, 1962).
The topic of probability is seen in many facets of the modern world. The theory of
probability is not just taught in mathematics courses, but can be seen in practical fields, such
as insurance, industrial quality control, study of genetics, quantum mechanics, and the kinetic
theory of gases (Simmons, 1992).
Activity #1:
Imagine that you were living in the seventeenth century as a nobleman. One day your friend
Chevalier de Mr was visiting and challenged you to a game of chance.
You agreed to play the game with him. He said, "I can get a sum of 8 and a sum of 6 rolling
two dice before you can get two sums of 7s." Would you continue to play the game?
Solution
to
Activity
#1:
I hope you changed your mind about playing the game of chance! Chevalier de Mr did not
state the order for the 8 and the 6. So, there are ten possible ways for him to get a favorable
result. There are only six ways for you to get a favorable result. I hope you imagined
yourself as a wealthy nobleman, because you have a 54.6 percent chance of losing if you
accepted to play the game with Chevalier de Mr.

Probability theory is a branch of mathematics concerned with determining the likelihood that
a given event will occur. This likelihood is determined by dividing the number of selected
events by the number of total events possible. For example, consider a single die (one of a
pair of dice) with six faces. Each face contains a different number of dots: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. If
you role the die in a completely random way, the probability of getting any one of the six
faces (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6) is one out of six.
Probability theory originally grew out of problems encountered by seventeenth-century
gamblers. It has since developed into one of the most respected and useful branches of
mathematics with applications in many different industries. Perhaps what makes probability
theory most valuable is that it can be used to determine the expected outcome in any situation
from the chances that a plane will crash to the probability that a person will win the lottery.

History of probability theory

Probability theory was originally inspired by gambling problems. The earliest work on the
subject was performed by Italian mathematician and physicist Girolamo Cardano (1501
1576). In his manual Liber de Ludo Aleae, Cardano discusses many of the basic concepts of
probability complete with a systematic analysis of gambling problems. Unfortunately,
Cardano's work had little effect on the development of probability because his manual did not
appear in print until 1663and even then received little attention.
In 1654, another gambler named Chevalier de Mr invented a system for gambling that he
was convinced would make money. He decided to bet even money that he could roll at least
one twelve in 24 rolls of two dice. However, when the Chevalier began losing money, he
asked his mathematician friend Blaise Pascal (16231662) to analyze his gambling system.
Pascal discovered that the Chevalier's system would lose about 51 percent of the time.
Pascal became so interested in probability that he began studying more problems in this field.
He discussed them with another famous mathematician, Pierre de Fermat (16011665) and,
together they laid the foundation of probability theory.

The probability of rolling snake eyes (two ones) with a pair of dice is 1 in 36.

Methods of studying probability

Probability theory is concerned with determining the relationship between the number of
times some specific given event occurs and the number of times any event occurs. For
example, consider the flipping of a coin. One might ask how many times a head will appear
when a coin is flipped 100 times.
Determining probabilities can be done in two ways: theoretically and empirically. The
example of a coin toss helps illustrate the difference between these two approaches. Using a
theoretical approach, we reason that in every flip there are two possibilities, a head or a tail.
By assuming each event is equally likely, the probability that the coin will end up heads is
or 0.5.
The empirical approach does not use assumptions of equal likelihood. Instead, an actual coin
flipping experiment is performed, and the number of heads is counted. The probability is then
equal to the number of heads actually found divided by the total number of flips.

Basic concepts
Probability is always represented as a fraction, for example, the number of times a "1 dot"
turns up when a die is rolled (such as 1 out 6, or ) or the number of times a head will turn
up when a penny is flipped (such as 1 out of 2, or ). Thus the probability of any event
always lies somewhere between 0 and 1. In this range, a probability of 0 means that there is
no likelihood at all of the given event's occurring. A probability of 1 means that the given
event is certain to occur.

Probabilities may or may not be dependent on each other. For example, we might ask what is
the probability of picking a red card OR a king from a deck of cards. These events are
independent because even if you pick a red card, you could still pick a king.
As an example of a dependent probability (also called a conditional probability), consider an
experiment in which one is allowed to pick any ball at random out of an urn that contains six
red balls and six black balls. On the first try, a person would have an equal probability of
picking either a red or a black ball. The number of each color is the same. But the probability
of picking either color is different on the second try, since only five balls of one color remain.

Applications of probability theory

Probability theory was originally developed to help gamblers determine the best bet to make
in a given situation. Many gamblers still rely on probability theoryeither consciously or
unconsciouslyto make gambling decisions.
Probability theory today has a much broader range of applications than just in gambling,
however. For example, one of the great changes that took place in physics during the 1920s
was the realization that many events in nature cannot be described with perfect certainty. The
best one can do is to say how likely the occurrence of a particular event might be.
When the nuclear model of the atom was first proposed, for example, scientists felt confident
that electrons traveled in very specific orbits around the nucleus of the atom. Eventually they
found that there was no basis for this level of certainty. Instead, the best they could do was to
specify the probability that a given electron would appear in various regions of space in the
atom. If you have ever seen a picture of an atom in a science or chemistry book, you know
that the cloudlike appearance of the atom is a way of showing the probability that electrons
occur in various parts of the atom.



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