NEW HAVEN, Conn., Aug. 30, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bayes' rule is a straightforward, one-line theorem: by updating an initial belief with objective new information, we produce a new and improved belief. To its adherents, it is an elegant statement about learning from experience. To its opponents, it is subjectivity run amok.
The Theory That Would Not Die is the first-ever account of Bayes' rule for general readers. Noted science writer Sharon Bertsch McGrayne explains the contentious history of this seemingly simple theorem and explores the obsessions that have surrounded it. She traces its discovery by an amateur mathematician in the 1740s, its development into modern form decades later by French scientist Pierre Simon Laplace, and the polarizing debates that have dogged Bayes' rule across the centuries.
McGrayne explains why respected statisticians rendered Bayes' rule almost taboo for 150 years, while at the same time it was successfully employed to solve difficult real-world problems. Bayes helped identify smoking as a leading cause of lung cancer, defend Dreyfus in France, establish workers' compensation insurance in the U.S., break Germany's Enigma code during WWII, determine the authorship of the Federalist Papers, and predict presidential election winners. Bayes has been used for earthquake and tsunami science since 1930s.
In a final chapter, McGrayne explains how the computer revolution proved to be a game-changer for Bayes' rule. Bayes makes it possible to analyze big data sets when the number of unknowns is gigantic. On the web, Bayes is used to organize and sort billions of documents to tell what we're likely to find interesting based on what we've looked at in the past. It stands behind our spam filters and search engines.
Today, Bayes is essential in finance, astronomy, physics, genetics, robotics, the military, antiterrorism, internet communication, speech recognition, and many other fields. Bayes' rule shapes much of the world as we know it, and yet it has remained largely unacknowledged outside specialist circles. With its vivid narrative style, remarkable characters, and surprising anecdotes, The Theory That Would Not Die is sure to bring Bayes' rule the attention it deserves.
For more information or to arrange an interview with the author, please contact Liz Pelton, 410-467-0989, lizpelton@aol.com.
About the Author: Sharon Bertsch McGrayne is the author of numerous books, including Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles, and Momentous Discoveries and Prometheans in the Lab: Chemistry and the Making of the Modern World. She was a prize-winning reporter for Scripps-Howard, Gannett, Crain's, and other newspapers, and was editor and author about physics for Encyclopedia Britannica. She has spoken at many scientific conferences, national laboratories, and universities in the United States and abroad. She lives in Seattle with her husband, George F. Bertsch, professor of physics at the University of Washington.
The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy, by Sharon Bertsch McGrayne
Price: $27.50 * ISBN: 978-0-300-16969-0 Cloth * eBook ISBN: 978-0-300-17509-7 * 336 pages
Publication date: May 10, 2011
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