History of Bayesian Statistics

 

Bayesian statistics has a long history, but modern advances in computer technology and mathematical theory have opened up new applications. Named after Thomas Bayes (1701-1761), a version of Bayes’s rule was published posthumously in 1763. The rule was fully developed by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1812 and popularized in the early 20th century through the work of Sir Harold Jeffreys. Mathematical physicists in Los Alamos, New Mexico working on the atomic bomb continued development incorporating Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques. Computer technology in the 1980s and 1990s enabled the expansion of these techniques to solve an increasing number of real world problems.

Thomas Bayes (1701-1761)

 

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