1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910463685503321

Autore

McGrayne Sharon Bertsch

Titolo

The theory that would not die [[electronic resource] ] : how Bayes' rule cracked the enigma code, hunted down Russian submarines, and emerged triumphant from two centuries of controversy / / Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven [Conn.], : Yale University Press, 2011

ISBN

1-283-10192-0

9786613101921

0-300-17509-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (288 p.)

Disciplina

519.5/42

Soggetti

Bayesian statistical decision theory - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

pt. 1. Enlightenment and the Anti-Bayesian reaction -- pt. 2. Second World War era -- pt. 3. The glorious revival -- pt. 4. To prove its worth -- pt. 5. Victory 211.

Sommario/riassunto

"Bayes' rule appears to be a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating our initial beliefs with objective new information, we get a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok. In the first-ever account of Bayes' rule for general readers, Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explores this controversial theorem and the human obsessions surrounding it. She traces its discovery by an amateur mathematician in the 1740s through its development into roughly its modern form by French scientist Pierre Simon Laplace. She reveals why respected statisticians rendered it professionally taboo for 150 years--at the same time that practitioners relied on it to solve crises involving great uncertainty and scanty information, even breaking Germany's Enigma code during World War II, and explains how the advent of off-the-shelf computer technology in the 1980s proved to be a game-changer. Today, Bayes' rule is used everywhere from DNA



de-coding to Homeland Security. Drawing on primary source material and interviews with statisticians and other scientists, The Theory That Would Not Die is the riveting account of how a seemingly simple theorem ignited one of the greatest controversies of all time"--

2.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910145569603321

Titolo

A concise companion to the Restoration and eighteenth century [[electronic resource] /] / edited by Cynthia Wall

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Malden, MA, : Blackwell Pub., 2005

ISBN

0-470-79392-9

1-4051-6490-5

1-78268-582-0

1-281-32109-5

9786611321093

0-470-75752-3

0-470-75749-3

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (296 p.)

Collana

Blackwell concise companions to literature and culture

Altri autori (Persone)

WallCynthia <1959->

Disciplina

820.9005

820.9006

Soggetti

English literature - 18th century - History and criticism

English literature - Early modern, 1500-1700 - History and criticism

Literature and history - Great Britain - 18th century

Literature and history - Great Britain - 17th century

Electronic books.

Great Britain History Restoration, 1660-1688

Great Britain Civilization 18th century

Great Britain Civilization 17th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

A Concise Companion to the Restoration and Eighteenth Century; Contents; List of illustrations; Notes on Contributors; Introduction; 1



Travel, Trade, and Empire: Knowing other Places, 1660-1800; 2 Scientific Investigations: Experimentalism and Paradisal Return; 3 Public and Private: The Myth of the Bourgeois Public Sphere; 4 The Streets: Literary Beggars and the Realities of Eighteenth-Century London; 5 The Sewers: Ordure, Effluence, and Excess in the Eighteenth Century; 6 The Novel: Novels in the World of Moving Goods; 7 The Gothic: Moving in the World of Novels

8 Gendering Texts: "The Abuse of Title Pages": Men Writing as Women9 Drama: Genre, Gender, Theater; 10 Poetry: The Poetry of Occasions; 11 Forms of Sublimity: The Garden, the Georgic, and the Nation; 12 Criticism: Literary History and Literary Historicism; Index

Sommario/riassunto

This Concise Companion presents fresh perspectives on eighteenth-century literature. Contributes to current debates in the field on subjects such as the public sphere, travel and exploration, scientific rhetoric, gender and the book trade, and historical versus literary perceptions of life on London streets. Searches out connections between the remarkable number of new genres that appeared in the eighteenth century. Crosses conventional disciplinary lines. Demonstrates that philosophy, history, politics and social theory both influence and are influenced