“It is useful to have a short expression for denoting the whole of the probabilities attached to the different attributes in a collective. We shall use for this purpose the word distribution.”

— Richard von Mises

Second Lecture, The Elements of the Theory of Probability, p. 35 (See also: probability space)
Probability, Statistics And Truth - Second Revised English Edition - (1957)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "It is useful to have a short expression for denoting the whole of the probabilities attached to the different attribute…" by Richard von Mises?

Richard von Mises 20

Austrian physicist and mathematician 1883–1953

Related quotes

“In practice, quantum mechanics merely gives predictions with probabilities attached. This should be considered as a normal and quite acceptable feature of predictions made by science: different possible outcomes with different probabilities. In the world that is familiar to us, we always have such a situation when we make predictions. Thus the question remains: What is the reality described by quantum theories? I claim that we can attribute the fact that our predictions come with probability distributions to the fact that not all relevant data for the predictions are known to us, in particular important features of the initial state.”

Gerardus 't Hooft (1946) Dutch theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize winner

Q&A: Gerard 't Hooft on the future of quantum mechanics http://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20170711a/full/, Physics Today, 11 July 2017

“Why should it not be the whole function of a word to denote many things?”

J. L. Austin (1911–1960) English philosopher

Source: Philosophical Papers (1979), p. 38.

“I feel I am privileged to express a hope. The hope is this: that we shall have peace throughout the world: that we shall abolish wars, and settle all international differences at the conference table: that we shall abolish all atom and hydrogen bombs, before they abolish us first.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

In response to journalist for his views on the future of mankind at his 70th birthday (16 April 1959)

“People seem to get used to anything, and it is a short step from adaptation to attachment.”

Lionel Shriver book We Need to Talk About Kevin

Source: We Need to Talk About Kevin

“Since only an individual man can possess rights, the expression “individual rights” is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today’s intellectual chaos). But the expression “collective rights” is a contradiction in terms.”

Ayn Rand book The Virtue of Selfishness

The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)

“In English-speaking countries, the connection between heresy and homosexuality is expressed through the use of a single word to denote both concepts: buggery. … Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (Third Edition) defines “buggery” as “heresy, sodomy.””

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

Source: The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1997), p. 165.

“Many of the attributes most distinctive of America and Americans are the impress of the wilderness. … Shall we now exterminate this thing that made us Americans?”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Wilderness as a Form of Land Use" [1925]; Published in The River of the Mother of God and Other Essays by Aldo Leopold, Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott (eds.) 1991, p. 137-138.
1920s