Probability: Two Hundred Years of Controversy by H. Prosper (Florida State University)

Thursday 18 Nov 2010, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

LPSC Amphi

Everyone has an intuitive understanding of the meaning of the statement: there is a 70% chance of rain tomorrow in Grenoble. Yet, even though the statement is intuitively clear, the precise meaning of statements of this sort has been the source of controversy for over two centuries. In this talk, I survey some aspects of this interesting history. I then illustrate the power of probabilistic reasoning in particle physics using some recent examples.