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The problem of points, also called the problem of division of the stakes, is a classical problem in probability theory.One of the famous problems that motivated the beginnings of modern probability theory in the 17th century, it led Blaise Pascal to the first explicit reasoning about what today is known as an expected value.
Through their correspondence in 1654, Fermat and Blaise Pascal helped lay the foundation for the theory of probability. From this brief but productive collaboration on the problem of points, they are now regarded as joint founders of probability theory. [18] Fermat is credited with carrying out the first-ever rigorous probability calculation.
However, Pascal and Fermat, though doing important early work in probability theory, did not develop the field very far. Christiaan Huygens , learning of the subject from the correspondence of Pascal and Fermat, wrote the first book on the subject.
The mathematical methods of probability arose in the investigations first of Gerolamo Cardano in the 1560s (not published until 100 years later), and then in the correspondence Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal (1654) on such questions as the fair division of the stake in an interrupted game of chance.
Probability theory or probability calculus is the branch of mathematics concerned with ... and by Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal in the seventeenth century ...
The sustained development of probability began in the year 1654 when Blaise Pascal had some correspondence with his father's friend Pierre de Fermat about two problems concerning games of chance he had heard from the Chevalier de Méré earlier the same year, whom Pascal happened to accompany during a trip.
It has its origins in correspondence discussing the mathematics of games of chance between Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat in the seventeenth century, [15] and was formalized and rendered axiomatic as a distinct branch of mathematics by Andrey Kolmogorov in the twentieth century.
The date which historians cite as the beginning of the development of modern probability theory is 1654, when two of the most well-known mathematicians of the time, Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat, began a correspondence discussing the subject.