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Buffon, Price, and Laplace: Scientific attribution in the 18th century. (English) Zbl 0762.01010

The history of the rule of succession of Laplace (1812) is being traced back to David Hume’s Treatise of 1739. Laplace criticized the solution, which G.-L. L. Buffon gave in his Essai d’arithmétique morale (1777). The famous work of Th. Bayes (1764), or better the covering letter to this paper by Richard Price is the source of Buffon’s answer. J. W. F. Herschel (1857) was one of the few to understand the distinction involved. M.-J.-A.-N. Marquis de Condorcet attempted the first mathematical analysis of the problem, but used a formula only appropriate to Laplace’s example. His attempt led to further confusions. Laplace gave a correct analysis and he drew the proper conclusions, but he failed to mention his predecessors. 24 references.
Reviewer: H.Grimm

MSC:

01A50 History of mathematics in the 18th century
01A55 History of mathematics in the 19th century
60-03 History of probability theory
62A01 Foundations and philosophical topics in statistics

Biographic References:

Buffon, G.-L.-L.; Price, R.; Laplace, P. S. de
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