History of Ripping People Off With Math

One of the earliest recorded uses of statistics was over 2400 years ago. A general, met with a well-guarded city, decided to exercise his cunning and math. Several men were charged with the seemingly menial task of counting bricks. The wise general knew that rather than measure the height of the wall, he could simply extrapolate the height of a single brick. Knowing the exact height of the wall, he bravely breached the city from the top of a ladder made of pure grit.

Statistics as we know it today is the youngest of the mathematics, clocking in around seventy years old. Although the principles have been around for a while, the technology necessary to run them effectively and accurately has only emerged within the virtual era. The same computers most use for FarmVille allows men to indisputably generate evidence for issues as large as smoking-induced cancer or climate change.

This guy will take your lottery money and your girl

Unsurprisingly, statistics also show up alarmingly often on the dark side. Many of the middle age uses of probability were used as a way to scam and cheat. In the 1770s, well-know philosopher Voltaire realized the chances of winning a lottery were high enough that he could make a fortune while playing. Similarly, one of the earliest computed probabilities were the sums of dice. This could of course be used to skew the odds with ease.




The united theory of statistics did not emerge until years after these rudimentary "life hacks". The bell curve which is at the heart of all statistical computations was not devised until about the time of the revolution, nearly a century after Voltaire's great scam. This new model led to some interesting discoveries, such as the idea of a "true mean". Although it was still possible to make errors, the average of the errors in a well-designed experiment would still eventually reveal the truth.

The beginning of the 20th century hosted one of the greatest advances in statistical science: the invention of the computer. From 1911 onward, we have had the aid of machines to run what used to be a month's worth of calculations overnight. This allowed statisticians to gather enough data to prove what their models already suggested.

This advance propelled stats into the same level of complexity that calculus had achieved two and a held centuries prior. Most of the statistical procedures seen today developed from fresh ideas developed in the forties and fifties. Now, statistics are such a large part of our rhetoric that we hardly realize it. Even from the shadows, statisticians wield a great deal of power and influence. Perhaps this is what drove the chief economist of Google to state that statisticians will be "the sexy profession of the next ten years."

Look at those curves.

Information taken from http://www.statslife.org.uk/images/pdf/timeline-of-statistics.pdf and Thomas Rye, the man who encouraged me to pick this major.