Horizon TV - John Steinbeck - Rene Descartes - Abraham Lincoln - George Boole - Edward Gibbon - Baruch Spinoza - Steven Pinker - Christiaan Huygens - David Hume - Max Planck - Pierre-Simon Laplace - Benoit Mandelbrot - Cicero -
Werner Heisenberg proposed a whole new law of physics. He said that it was impossible to measure both the speed and the position of a particle. Because strangely the mere act of observing these tiny objects radically affected their behaviour. But if that was true it had profound implications. If you couldn’t be precise about a particle’s speed and position, then it would be impossible to make accurate predictions about its movements. And Einstein believed everything should be predictable ... The best you could hope for was a science based on probabilities. Horizon: Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony, BBC 2005
I know three things will never be believed – the true, the probable, and the logical. John Steinbeck, The Winter of our Discontent
When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable. Rene Descartes
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just. Abraham Lincoln
Probability is expectation founded upon partial knowledge. A perfect acquaintance with all the circumstances affecting the occurrence of an event would change expectation into certainty, and leave nether room nor demand for a theory of probabilities. George Boole
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular. Edward Gibbon
In practical life we are compelled to follow what is most probable; in speculative thought we are compelled to follow truth. Baruch Spinoza, The Letters
The mind is not designed to grasp the laws of probability, even though the laws rule the universe. Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works
I believe that we do not know anything for certain, but everything probably. Christiaan Huygens, Oeuvres Completes
All knowledge resolves itself into probability ... In every judgment, which we can form concerning probability, as well as concerning knowledge, we ought always to correct the first judgment deriv’d from the nature of the object, by another judgment, deriv’d from the nature of the understanding. David Hume, A treatise of Human Nature, 1888
Nature prefers the more probable states to the less probable because in nature processes take place in the direction of greater probability. Heat goes from a body at higher temperature to a body at lower temperature because the state of equal temperature distribution is more probable than a state of unequal temperature distribution. Max Planck
The theory of probabilities is at bottom nothing but common sense reduced to calculus; it enables us to appreciate with exactness that which accurate minds feel with a sort of instinct for which of times they are unable to account. Pierre-Simon Laplace, Introduction to Théorie Analytique des Probabilitiés
The theory of probability is the only mathematical tool available to help map the unknown and the uncontrollable. It is fortunate that this tool, while tricky, is extraordinarily powerful and convenient. Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature
Probability is the very guide to life. Cicero