7 Quotes by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

At the laboratory, Turing designed the first relatively complete electronic stored-program digital computer for code breaking in 1945. Darwin deemed it too ambitious, however, and after several years Turing left in disgust. When the laboratory finally built his design in 1950, it was the fastest computer in the world and, astonishingly, had the memory capacity of an early Macintosh built three decades later.

Many of Ronald A. Fisher's ideas were solutions to computational problems caused by the limitations of the era's desk calculators.

Yet Laplace had built his probability theory on intuition. As far as he was concerned, "essentially, the theory of probability is nothing but good common sense reduced to mathematics. It provides an exact appreciation of what sound minds feel with a kind of instinct, frequently without being able to account for it.

As Dennis Lindley had argued, if someone attaches a prior probability of zero the hypothesis that the moon is made of green cheese, "then the whole armies of astronauts coming back bearing green cheese cannot convince him.

Jack Good's contract at Virginia Tech stipulated that he would always be paid $1 more than the football coach.

Yet Laplace had built his probability theory on intuition. As far as he was concerned, “essentially, the theory of probability is nothing but good common sense reduced to mathematics. It provides an exact appreciation of what sound minds feel with a kind of instinct, frequently without being able to account for it.

Many of Ronald A. Fisher’s ideas were solutions to computational problems caused by the limitations of the era’s desk calculators.