Obsession and competitiveness fueled early statisticians to solve all sorts of problems. Here are a few stories of some or the problems statisticians considered.
- [Instructor] Math isn't new.…Statistics, though, it isn't that old.…And believe it or not,…if it wasn't for a French writer that fancied gambling,…who knows when the modern theory…of probability would have been discovered.…The French writer's name was Antoine Gombaud.…He preferred being called the Chevalier de Mere.…Dice was his game…and it seemed that he liked gambling a lot.…And he kept records.…Anyway, the Chevalier,…he figured that the odds of rolling at least one six…in four rolls,…was the same as rolling at least one double-six…in 24 rolls.…
It seemed logical,…but his meticulous gambling records didn't agree.…He needed answers,…but there was no such thing as probability.…Where could he turn?…Well, the Chevalier, he liked hanging out…in some fairly elite intellectual circles.…This is how he knew the French prodigy, Blaise Pascal.…Pascal, he's an all-time math Hall of Famer.…The Chevalier, writer, gambler, accountant.…
He asked Pascal to help him solve this problem.…Pascal accepts the challenge…and reins in his buddy…
Author
Eddie Davila
Updated
12/20/2019Released
10/5/2018Note: Because this is an ongoing series, viewers will not receive a certificate of completion.
Skill Level Intermediate
Duration
Views
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New This Week:
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Safe travel3m 23s
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Proportions of coins4m 53s
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Introduction
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Previous Installments
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Political polls3m 14s
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Test scores2m 59s
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Data collection2m 40s
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Birthdays in the USA3m 15s
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The house always wins4m 1s
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Wisdom of the crowd3m 12s
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The pay gap at Uber3m 58s
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Cancer survival rates4m 22s
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Television ratings4m 15s
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Historic stats stories4m 28s
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The one percent3m 58s
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New Year's Eve3m 28s
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Influenza3m 17s
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Winter is coming3m 11s
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The Super Bowl4m 39s
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Genetics3m 45s
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Relationships3m 48s
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The box office2m 39s
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Unemployment2m 41s
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Waiting in lines4m 29s
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Sleep2m 56s
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March Madness4m 43s
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Baseball4m 41s
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Income tax statistics1m 49s
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College waiting lists4m 26s
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Horse racing statistics3m 45s
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Restaurant statistics2m 43s
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Lyme disease2m 55s
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Zoo animal statistics2m 41s
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Earthquakes2m 54s
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Statistics of hunting2m 48s
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Transcontinental convoy2m 7s
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Moon landing3m 44s
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Summer movies2m 56s
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Reliability3m 47s
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Woodstock3m 44s
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Hurricanes2m 47s
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P-hacking2m 49s
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Salaries2m 51s
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Dow Jones3m
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Population3m 23s
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Epidemiology2m 55s
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Rock stars3m 44s
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Acceptance sampling3m 18s
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The value of my change4m 42s
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In-game win probabilities3m 39s
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Stock market ups and downs3m 18s
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Prohibition3m 30s
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Bayes' theorem4m 15s
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Divorce3m 35s
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The U.S. Census3m 26s
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English3m 8s
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Santa Claus3m 47s
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Parenting3m 6s
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Video: Historic stats stories