"I determined to... investigate how closely the runs, that is, successions of numbers of the same colour were in accord with theory. ...The chance of a head=\frac{1}{2}, of two heads succeeding each other \frac{1}{2}\times\frac{1}{2} = \frac{1}{4}, of three heads \frac{1}{2}\times\frac{1}{2}\times\frac{1}{2} = \frac{1}{8}, and so on. Calling a "set" the run of tosses or the throws of the roulette ball till a change of face or of colour comes, the chance of a change=\frac{1}{2}, of a persistence followed by a change \frac{1}{2}\times\frac{1}{2} = \frac{1}{4}, and so on. ...[I]n the case of the roulette on one occasion the actual deviation is nearly ten times the standard.... The odds are thousand millions to one against such a deviation as nine or ten times the standard. ..My pupil... tabulated... the runs in a second fortnight's play with the result... so improbable that it was only to be expected once in 5000 years of continuous roulette. ...Finally, Mr. de Whalley investigated 7976 throws of the ball, forming a fortnight's play, at a slightly later date... There resulted deviations 4.63, 4.62, and 4.44 times the standard deviation, or odds of upwards of 263,000 to 1... That one such fortnight of runs should have occurred in the year 1892 might be looked upon as a veritable miracle, that three should have occurred is absolutely conclusive. Roulette as played at Monte Carlo is not a scientific game of chance."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Philosophers from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge facultyMathematicians from EnglandBiographers from EnglandStatisticians
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Pearson
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson (27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an influential English mathematician and biostatistician. He founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London in 1911.
118 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Karl Pearson →
Related Quotes
"Heredity. Given any organ in a parent and the same or any other organ in its offspring, the mathematical measure of h…"
"The purpose of the mathematical theory of statistics is to deal with the relationship between 2 or more variable quan…"
"[M]y axiom runs as follows: "The whole is not identical with a part." This axiom leads us at once to a problem. What …"
"I simply assert that the universe alters, is "becoming;" what it is becoming I will not venture to say. ...the indivi…"
"What relation has the life of the individual to the life of the universe? ...The former is absolutely subordinate, in…"
"The "Eternal Why" begins to haunt his mind; "Why... am I here?" he asks. What relation do I, a part, bear to the whol…"
"Primitive man... rushes to the satisfactory conclusion that that power must be itself infinite; that he, man, is not …"
"[D]efinition... Religion is the relation of the finite to the infinite. ...is the relation. ...[T]here is only one re…"
"The great danger... not content with our real knowledge of the relation of the finite to the infinite, they slur over…"
"For the present the Grammar may yet be of service. After an eight years' life and... 4000 copies, it reappears in a r…"