Buffon, the certainty of sunrise, and the probabilistic reductio ad absurdum (Q5944757): Difference between revisions

The author discusses the problem of the probability of the next sunrise as treated by R. Price (1764) and especially G.-L. Buffon in his ``Essai d'arithmétique morale'' (1777). He considers 1. The origin of the problem (thought experiments; the feelings of an ignorant person observing a succession of identical events; philosophical conclusions about such events and about sunrises in particular). Several scholars are mentioned, e.g., J. Locke, Leibniz, Pascal, Hume, E. B. de Condillac. 2. The previous work of Buffon. The author believes that Buffon's simple astronomical calculations of 1749 could have provided the model for computing the probability of the sunrise. 3. The possibility that Buffon compiled his ``Essai'' much earlier than 1777, and likely before 1764. I note that the notion of geometrical probability also discussed in the ``Essai'' was described in an anonymous note in the ``Histoire'' of the Paris Academy, année 1733 (1735). 4. The difference between the formulas provided by Price, Buffon and Laplace. The date of Arbuthnot's note of 1712 is mistakenly given as 1710.