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Last update 27 augustus 2003.

Literary Stuff

This page shows some examples of the influence of the concepts of probability and statistics, as can be gathered from literary texts. It could be considered a gross error to infer from this small sample that allusions to probability and statistics are in general found in the first part of a work of literary merit:).
  1. Rabelais, F (1532) Gargantua & Pantagruel: book 1, chapt 23
  2. .
    ...This done, they brought in cards, not to play, but to learn a thousand pretty tricks and new inventions, which were all grounded upon arithmetic. By this means he fell in love with that numerical science, and every day after dinner and supper he passed his time in it as pleasantly as he was wont to do at cards and dice; so that at last he understood so well both the theory and practical part thereof, that Tunstall the Englishman, who had written very largely of that purpose, confessed that verily in comparison of him he had no skill at all. And not only in that, but in the other mathematical sciences, as geometry, astronomy, music, &c. For in waiting on the concoction and attending the digestion of his food, they made a thousand pretty instruments and geometrical figures, and did in some measure practise the astronomical canons.
    The ecclesiast and diplomat Cuthbert Tunstall (or Tonstall) (1474-1559) wrote De Arte Supputandi libri quattuor (about the art of arithmetic, in 4 books) in 1522. It is not yet clear to me, what kind of arithmetic in relation to cards, Rabelais is refering to.

  3. Rabelais, F (1532) Gargantua & Pantagruel: book 1, chapt 24
  4. .
    ...; or brought into use the antique play of tables, as Leonicus hath written of it... In playing they examined the passages of ancient authors wherein the said play is mentioned or any metaphor drawn from it.
    The Italian physician and humanist Nicollo Leoniceno (Nicolas Leonicus Thomaeus 1428-1524) wrote Sannutus, sive de ludo talario (The Mocker or about the knucklebone/dice game).

  5. Montaigne, M. (1580, 1597) Essays: book 1, chapt 19
  6. . Translation by John Florio (1603)
    Moreover, seely creature as thou art, who hath limited the end of thy daies? Happily thou presumest upon physitians reports. Rather consider the effect and experience. By the common course of things long since thou livest by extraordinarie favour. Thou hast alreadie over-past the ordinarie tearmes of common life: And to prove it, remember but thy acquaintances, and tell me how many more of them have died before they came to thy age, than have either attained or outgone the same: yea, and of those that through renoune have ennobled their life, if thou but register them, I will lay a wager, I will finde more that have died before they came to five and thirty years, than after.
    Montaigne suggests that more than fifty percent of the people die before the age of thirtyfive.

  7. Browne, T (1642) Religio Medici: book 1, chapt 18
  8. .
    These must not therefore be named the effects of fortune but in a relative way, and as we term the works of nature. It was the ignorance of man's reason that begat this very name, and by a careless term miscalled the providence of God: for there is no liberty for causes to operate in a loose and straggling way; nor any effect whatsoever but hath its warrant from some universal or superior cause. 'Tis not a ridiculous devotion to say a prayer before a game at tables; for, even in sortileges and matters of greatest uncertainty, there is a settled and preordered course of effects. It is we that are blind, not fortune. Because our eye is too dim to discover the mystery of her effects, we foolishly paint her blind, and hoodwink the providence of the Almighty.
    The physician and antiquarian Thomas Browne (1609-1682) looked at chance as a form of divine intervention, that was less well / not yet understood by man.

  9. Sterne, L (1759) The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, book 1, chapt 9
  10. .
    ...My Lord, if you examine it over again, it is far from being a gross piece of daubing, as some dedications are. The design, your Lordship sees, is good,--the colouring transparent,--the drawing not amiss;--or to speak more like a man of science,--and measure my piece in the painter's scale, divided into 20,--I believe, my Lord, the outlines will turn out as 12,-- the composition as 9,--the colouring as 6,--the expression 13 and a half,-- and the design,--if I may be allowed, my Lord, to understand my own design, and supposing absolute perfection in designing, to be as 20,--I think it cannot well fall short of 19. Besides all this,--there is keeping in it, and the dark strokes in the Hobby-Horse, (which is a secondary figure, and a kind of back-ground to the whole) give great force to the principal lights in your own figure, and make it come off wonderfully;--and besides, there is an air of originality in the tout ensemble...
    This painter's scale was developed by the French art critic Roger de Piles (1635-1709) who in 1708 published Balance des Peintres in which he rated 57 painters on 4 dimensions (use of color, design, drawing and expression). Other early applications of rating scales can be found at the Oldest Psych Rating Scales web site of Sally Kuhlenschmidt.

  11. Pynchon, T (1973) Gravity's Rainbow part 1, chapt 9
  12. .
    Roger has tried to explain to her the V-bomb statistics; the difference between distribution, in angel's-eye view, over the map of England, and their own chances, as seen from down there. She's almost got it, nearly understands his Poisson equation..." ...Couldn't there be an equation for us too,..."..."...There is no way, love, not as long as the mean density of the strikes is constant..."
    V2 impacts as an example of an application of the Poisson distribution and a reference to a 1946 paper by RD Clarke, where this example is based on, can be found in Feller (1968) An Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications, third edition.