The Bell Curve Takes Shape

Abstract

This chapter tells how quantification as an idea in spirit is moving across the Atlantic to the new country of the United States, and its relevance to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Probability theory begins to take off with Abraham de Moivre as he investigates distributions for numbers. He devises a histogram and begins a study of “errors” in a distribution in his Doctrine of Chances. Three terms are explained: “probability,” “odds,” and “likelihood.” What made the advances in mathematics, statistics, and especially probability theory so prominent was both the sheer volume of new ideas and the absolutely torrential pace at which these developments came.