Probability Theory Quotes

At a purely formal level, one could call probability theory the study of measure spaces with total measure one, but that would be like calling number theory the study of strings of digits which terminate.

Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.

Perfection is a theory. You cannot be a perfect human being, perfect artist. You cannot be a perfect husband, you cannot be a perfect father probably and probably I am not. But go through your daily routine with hope you will be a little better in all respects, and do something meaningful

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.

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.

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.

Probably no branch of mathematics has experienced a more surprising growth than has... topology... Considered as a most specialized and abstract subject in the early 1920's, it is today [1938] an indispensable equipment for the investigation of modern mathematical theories.

I need an endorphin boost.” “And making out in an abandoned barn with me will give you one?” “No, it will probably put me in an endorphin coma, and I’m more than happy to test the theory.

The entire annals of Observation probably do not elsewhere exhibit so extraordinary a verification of any theoretical conjecture adventured on by the human spirit!

Entropy theory, on the other hand, is not concerned with the probability of succession in a series of items but with the overall distribution of kinds of items in a given arrangement.

The Galapagos Islands are probably the most famous wildlife-watching destination in the world. And no wonder - it's almost impossible to exaggerate the sheer spectacle of the place that provided inspiration for Charles Darwin's ground-breaking theory of natural selection.

Had I not played the Sicilian with Black I could have saved myself the trouble of studying for more than 20 years all the more popular lines of this opening, which comprise probably more than 25 percent of all published opening theory!

In no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory.

You know that, according to quantum theory, if two particles collide with enough energy you can, in principle, with an infinitesimal probability, produce two grand pianos.

Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).

Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities- that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of illustration.

One reason education undoes belief is its teaching of evolution;

Darwin's own drift from orthodoxy to agnosticism was symptomatic. Martin Lings is probably right in saying that more cases of loss of religious faith are to be traced to the theory of evolution ... than to anything else.

Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.

Maybe we should teach schoolchildren probability theory and investment risk management.

You were probably educated in the conventional economic theories of your period which were magnificent and most ingenious, but--if you will pardon my saying so--all wrong.

Our theory is, if you need the user to tell you what you're selling, then you don't know what you're selling, and it's probably not going to be a good experience.

If a theory can not be explained to a child, then the theory is probably worthless.

Your humble correspondent realizes that many readers are left-wing, anti-string-theory fighters. So they probably smoke marijuana and this is my modest attempt to help them.

My theory is that poems are written because of a state of emotional irritation.

It may be present for some time before the poet is conscious of what is tormenting him. The emotional irritation springs, probably, from subconscious combinations of partly forgotten thoughts and feelings. Coming together, like electrical currents in a thunder storm, they produce a poem. ... the poem is written to free the poet from an emotional burden.

Following Korzybski, I put things in probabilities, not absolutes.

.. My only originality lies in applying this zetetic attitude outside the hardest of the hard sciences, physics, to softer sciences and then to non-sciences like politics, ideology, jury verdicts and, of course, conspiracy theory.

One of the most striking and fundamental things about probability theory is that it leads to an understanding of the otherwise strange fact that events which are individually capricious and unpredictable can, when treated en masse, lead to very stable average performances.

It was our use of probability theory as logic that has enabled us to do so easily what was impossible for those who thought of probability as a physical phenomenon associated with "randomness". Quite the opposite; we have thought of probability distributions as carriers of information.

The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound.

Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence.

It really is a nice theory. The only defect I think it has is probably common to all philosophical theories. It's wrong.

Dream dictionaries are so disappointing.

They're so limited, and I think they're just total bullshit. I really do. I don't know much about the Freudian theory of dreams; it's probably more interesting than your average hippie dream dictionary, but it's got to be a lot deeper than that. It can't all be about sex all the time, so I don't know if Freud is right either.

The rewriting is always crucial to what I do;

whenever I do a scene, I always tell myself that this isn't final and that I can do it again, better. The pacing is probably from experience. I've always liked gradual disclosure. I keep thinking of my rubber-band theory. You have a rubber band that you keep pulling and pulling and pulling, and just at the moment of snapping you release it and start another chapter and start pulling again.

The early 20th Century was probably the high tide of global white supremacy - I'm going to call it that because that's how people thought of it - and to be specific, Anglo-Saxon supremacy: The idea that white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were at the top of the world, representing the highest achievement possible for all of humanity, with Darwin's theories being used to prop up this belief.

I'll probably take the prize for the most irrelevant degree.

Although some of the things now where they study, you know: "post feministic colonial film theory" - those kind of majors, yeah, that's probably worse. But I was, you know, classics, Greek and Latin, like what's more irrelevant than dead languages, you know?

Philosophers (and probably most intellectuals) are more interested in pursuing what they see as the logical implications of their theories than they are in paying attention to the shlumpy diversity of defensible values that people actually have, and then trying to figure out how these might be negotiated in the life of an agent or community.