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1 Studies in the History of Statistics and Probability ... - Sheynin, Oscar

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Concern<strong>in</strong>g <strong>the</strong> rigor <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> frequentist <strong>the</strong>ory, witness Uspensky etal (1990, § 1.3.4):Until now, it proved impossible to embody Mises’ <strong>in</strong>tention <strong>in</strong> adef<strong>in</strong>ition <strong>of</strong> r<strong>and</strong>omness that was satisfactory from any po<strong>in</strong>t <strong>of</strong> view.I ought to add, however, that Kolmogorov (1963, p. 369) hadessentially s<strong>of</strong>tened his viewpo<strong>in</strong>t about that <strong>the</strong>ory:I have come to realize that <strong>the</strong> concept <strong>of</strong> r<strong>and</strong>om distribution <strong>of</strong> aproperty <strong>in</strong> a large f<strong>in</strong>ite population can have a strict formalma<strong>the</strong>matical exposition.In <strong>the</strong> 19 th <strong>and</strong> 20 th centuries statisticians had been reluctant tojustify <strong>the</strong>ir studies by <strong>the</strong> Bernoulli LLN. They did not refer ei<strong>the</strong>r to<strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>verse law or to Poisson (which would not have changed much).Maciejewski (1911, p. 96) even <strong>in</strong>troduced la loi des gr<strong>and</strong>s nombresdes statisticiens that only stated that <strong>the</strong> fluctuation <strong>of</strong> statisticalnumbers dim<strong>in</strong>ished with <strong>the</strong> <strong>in</strong>crease <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> number <strong>of</strong> trials.Romanovsky (1924, pt 1, p. 15) stressed <strong>the</strong> natural scientific essence<strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> LLN <strong>and</strong> called it physical. Chuprov (1924, p. 465) declaredthat <strong>the</strong> LLN <strong>in</strong>cluded ei<strong>the</strong>r ma<strong>the</strong>matical formulas or empiricalrelations <strong>and</strong> <strong>in</strong> his letters <strong>of</strong> that time he effectively denied that <strong>the</strong>LLN provided a bridge between probability <strong>and</strong> statistics.BibliographyBayes T. (1764), An essay towards solv<strong>in</strong>g a problem <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> doctr<strong>in</strong>e <strong>of</strong> chances.Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., vol 53 for 1763, pp. 360 – 418. Repr<strong>in</strong>t: Biometrika, vol. 45,1958, pp. 293 – 345.--- (1765), Demonstration <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> second rule <strong>in</strong> <strong>the</strong> essay [<strong>of</strong> 1764]. Ibidem, vol.54 for 1764, pp. 296 – 325.Chuprov A. A. (1924), Ziele und Wege der stochastischen Grundlagen derstatistische Theorie. Nord. Stat. Tidskr., t. 3, pp. 433 – 493.Kolmogorov A. N. (1963), On tables <strong>of</strong> r<strong>and</strong>om numbers. Sankhya, Indian J.Stat., vol. A25, pp. 369 – 376.Maciejewski C. (1911), Nouveaux fondements de la théorie de la statistique.Paris.Romanovsky V. I. (1924 Russian), Theory <strong>of</strong> probability <strong>and</strong> statistics accord<strong>in</strong>gto some newest Western scholars. Vestnik Statistiki, No. 4 – 6, pp. 1 – 38; No. 7 – 9,pp. 5 – 34.Uspensky V. A., Semenov A. L., Shen A. Kh. (1990 Russian), Can an(<strong>in</strong>dividual) sequence <strong>of</strong> zeros <strong>and</strong> ones be r<strong>and</strong>om? Uspekhi Matematich. Nauk, vol.45, pp. 105 – 162. This periodical is be<strong>in</strong>g translated cover to cover.140

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