When did the study of probability begin?

Answer 1

A gamblers 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 Méré, a French nobleman who was interested in gaming and gambling questions, called Pascal's attention to an apparent contradiction concerning a popular dice game. The game consisted in tossing 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 Méré to believe that betting a double six in 24 tosses would be profitable, but when he did his own calculations they indicated the opposite.

This and some other problems posed by de Méré 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 learned of this correspondence and in 1657 published the first book on probability: titled De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae, it was a treatise on problems associated with gambling. Because of the inherent appeal of games of chance, the theory soon became popular and the subject developed rapidly during the 18th century. The people who mainly contributed during this period were Jakob Bernoulli and Abraham de Moivre.

In 1812 Pierre de Laplace introduced a host of new ideas and mathematical techniques in his book, Théorie Analytique des Probabilités. Before Laplace, probability theory was only 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 19th 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 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 Kolomogorov.

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 a lot of 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. Since the ideas have been refined somewhat and probability theory is now part of a more general discipline known as measure theory.