The probability theory begins in attempts to describe gambling(how to win, how to divide the stakes, etc.),

probability theory mainly considered discrete events, and its methods were mainly combinatorial

Gerolamo Cardano(September 24, 1501 – September 21, 1576)

Author of the first book on probability“De Ludo Aleae” ~ “On the dice game”written in 1560s, published in 1663

… eventually, analytical considerations motivated the incorporation of continuous variables into the theory. The foundations of modern theory of probability were laid by

Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov, who combined the notion of sample space, introduced by Richard von Mises, and Lebesgue measure theory and presented his axiom system for

probability theory in 1933 (Grundbegrie der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung, by A. Kolmogorov, Julius Springer, Berlin, 1933, 62 pp.)

Andrei Kolmogorov (1903-1987):A founder of modern theory of

probabilities (1933)

Richard Edler von Mises (19 April 1883 - 14 July 1953)

Henri Léon Lebesgue (June 28, 1875 – July 26, 1941)

Karl Pearson (March 27, 1857 – April 27, 1936) established the discipline of mathematical statistics

George Udny Yule

(18 Feb 1871, Scotland -- 26 June 1951, England)

“The only theory of correlation at present available for practical use is based on the normal law of frequency, but, unfortunately, this law is not valid in a great many cases which are both common and important. It does not hold good, to take examples from biology, for statistics of fertility in man, for measurements on flowers, or for weight measurements even on adults. In economic statistics, on the other hand, normal distributions appear to be highly exceptional; variation of wages, prices, valuations, pauperisms, and so forth, are always skew. In cases like these we have at present no means of measuring the correlation by one or more “correlation coefficients” such are afforded by the normal theory.”

G.U.Yule (1897) On the theory of correlationJournal of the Royal Statistical Society, 60, 812-821

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher(17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962)

Ghil and Zaliapin (2013) El Nino, Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards.

http://datamining.typepad.com/gallery/blog-map-gallery.html

Aspirin PlaceboH

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No

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Aspirin PlaceboH

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No

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Aspirin PlaceboH

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No

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John Park Finley -- U.S. Army Signal Corps

Finley, J. P., 1884: Tornado predictions.American Meteorological Journal, 1, 85 – 88.

In this study tornado predictions were made for each of 18 districts in the central and eastern United States during March, April, and May. The forecasts were produced twice a day for 8-h periods beginning at 07:00 and 15:00.

VS

Having given the number of instances respectively in which things are both thus and so, in which they are thus but not so, in which they are so but not thus, and in which they are neither thus nor so, it is required to eliminate the general quantitative relativity inhering in the mere thingness of the things, and to determine the special quantitative relativity subsisting between the thusness and the soness of the things.

M. H. Doolittle, Bull. Philos. Soc. Washington, 1888

Observations

For

ecas

ts

Tornado No tornado

Tor

nado

No

torn

ado

28 72

23 2680

Finley

GilbertPierce

Doolittle Clayton

Doolittle-Heidke

Hanssen-Kuiper

‘‘it seems clear to me that no single numerical expression can be a proper solution of such a problem’’

M. H. Doolittle, Amer. Meteor. J., 1885