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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.
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.
He later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. In 1642, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines), establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator. [8] [9]
Pierre de Fermat died on January 12, 1665, at Castres, in the present-day department of Tarn. [22] The oldest and most prestigious high school in Toulouse is named after him: the Lycée Pierre-de-Fermat. French sculptor Théophile Barrau made a marble statue named Hommage à Pierre Fermat as a tribute to Fermat, now at the Capitole de Toulouse.
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.
The modern mathematical theory of probability has its roots in attempts to analyze games of chance by Gerolamo Cardano in the sixteenth century, and by Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal in the seventeenth century (for example the "problem of points"). [3]
1654 – Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat create the mathematical theory of probability, 1657 – Chistiaan Huygens's De ratiociniis in ludo aleae is the first book on mathematical probability, 1662 – John Graunt's Natural and Political Observations Made upon the Bills of Mortality makes inferences from statistical data on deaths in London,
As a mathematical subject, the theory of probability arose very late—as compared to geometry for example—despite the fact that we have prehistoric evidence of man playing with dice from cultures from all over the world. [3] One of the earliest writers on probability was Gerolamo Cardano. He perhaps produced the earliest known definition of ...