Probability Quotes - Page 6

• Where there's a will, there's a way. Hackers tend to find a way. Code is also expanding. More lines of code means more probability that there is an exploit that can be [used].

  Michael Demon Calce

  Mean, Lines, Way

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• History cannot be reduced to a set of statistics and probabilities.

  Alan Greenspan

  Statistics

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• Expert estimates of probability are often off by factors of hundreds or
  thousands. [...] I used to be annoyed when the margin of error was high in
  a forecasting model that I might put together. Now I view it as perhaps the
  single most important piece of information that a forecaster provides. When
  we publish a forecast on FiveThirtyEight, I go to great lengths to document
  the uncertainty attached to it, even if the uncertainty is sufficiently
  large that the forecast won't make for punchy headlines.

  Nate Silver

  Views, Errors, Annoyed

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• The moment of enlightenment is when a person's dreams of possibilities become images of probabilities.

  Vic Braden

  Inspirational, Dream, Opportunity

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• If you trace back all those links in the chain that had to be in place for me to be here, the laws of probability maintain that my very existence is miraculous. But then after however many decades, less than a hundred years, they disburse and I cease to be. So while they're all congregated and coordinated to make me, then-and I speak her on behalf of all those trillions of atoms-I should really make the most of things.

  Jim Al-Khalili

  Atheist, Years, Law

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• In flying, the probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.

  Neil Armstrong

  Science, Flying, Survival

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• Probability is the guide of life, and of death, too.

  Peter Singer

  Guides

  Peter Singer (2011). “Practical Ethics”, p.173, Cambridge University Press

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• If an event can be produced by a number n of different causes, the probabilities of the existence of these causes, given the event (prises de l'événement), are to each other as the probabilities of the event, given the causes: and the probability of each cause is equal to the probability of the event, given that cause, divided by the sum of all the probabilities of the event, given each of the causes.

  Pierre-Simon Laplace

  Science, Numbers, Events

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• It is profitable wisdom to know when we have done enough: Much time and pains are spared in not flattering ourselves against probabilities.

  William Penn

  Pain, Done, Enough

  William Penn (1726). “A Collection of the Works of William Penn: To which is Prefixed a Journal of His Life, with Many Original Letters and Papers Not Before Published”, p.831

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• In short, absolute, so-called mathematical, factors never find a firm basis in military calculations. From the very start, there is an interplay of possibilities, probabilities, good luck and bad, that weaves its way throughout the length and breadth of the tapestry. In the whole range of human activities, war most closely resembles a game of cards.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  Military, War, Good Luck

  On War Chapter 1, 21 (p. 86)

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• Failure saves lives. In the airline industry, every time a plane crashes the probability of the next crash is lowered by that. The Titanic saved lives because we're building bigger and bigger ships. So these people died, but we have effectively improved the safety of the system, and nothing failed in vain.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Failure, People, Safety

  The Tavis Smiley Show, www.pbs.org. December 3, 2012.

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• All that belongs to human understanding, in this deep ignorance and obscurity, is to be sceptical, or at least cautious, and not to admit of any hypothesis whatever, much less of any which is supported by no appearance of probability.

  David Hume

  Ignorance, Understanding, Obscurity

  David Hume (1826). “The Philosophical Works: Including All the Essays, and Exhibiting the More Important Alterations and Corrections in the Successive Ed. Publ. by the Author”, p.518

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• They basically ask their engineers to volunteer some probability figures, then they take the average. This is not science. This is voodoo.

  Michio Kaku

  Average, Volunteer, Figures

  "Nuclear-powered NASA craft to zoom by Earth on Tuesday". www.cnn.com. August 16, 1999.

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• We make investment decisions based on our evaluation of the most profitable combination of probabilities.

  Warren Buffett

  Decision, Evaluation, Investment

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• In quantum mechanics there is A causing B. The equations do not stand outside that usual paradigm of physics. The real issue is that the kinds of things you predict in quantum mechanics are different from the kinds of things you predict using general relativity. Quantum mechanics, that big, new, spectacular remarkable idea is that you only predict probabilities, the likelihood of one outcome or another. That's the new idea.

  Brian Greene

  Real, Ideas, Issues

  "Professor Brian Greene answers everything you wanted to know about string theory and the multiverse". "Lateline", www.abc.net.au. February 26, 2016.

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• There can be no doubt that probability increases with practice. Fortune favours the brave, fortune favours the prepared mind, and fortune favours those who work the hardest.

  Michael Kenna

  Practice, Brave, Doubt

  Source: www.smh.com.au

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• There exists a world. In terms of probability this borders on the impossible. It would have been far more likely if, by chance, there was nothing at all. Then, at least, no one would have began asking why there was nothing.

  Jostein Gaarder

  Asking Why, Borders, World

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• Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired. Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.

  Colin Powell

  Numbers, Use, Information

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• What I'm trying to do is to maximise the probability of the future being better.

  Elon Musk

  Trying

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• The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more.

  Isaac Asimov

  Law, Errors, Variation

  Isaac Asimov (1986). “Foundation Trilogy”, Del Rey

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• Without doubt, matter is unlimited in extent, and, in this sense, infinite; and the forces of Nature mould it into an innumerable number of worlds. Would it be at all astonishing if, from the universal dice-box, out of an innumberable number of throws, there should be thrown out one world infinitely perfect? Nay, does not the calculus of probabilities prove to us that one such world out of an infinite number, must be produced of necessity?

  William Batchelder Greene

  Numbers, Perfect, Doubt

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• There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is impossible.

  Jack Vance

  Men, Order, Trying

  "The Languages of Pao" by Jack Vance, iBooks, (p. 133), 2004.

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• It is almost possible to predict one or two days in advance, within a rather broad range of probability, what the weather is going to be; it is even thought that it will not be impossible to publish daily forecasts, which would be very useful to soci.

  Antoine Lavoisier

  Weather, Two, Would Be

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• One of the elementary rules of nature is that, in the absence of a law prohibiting an event or phenomenon, it is bound to occur with some degree of probability. To put it simply and crudely: Anything that can happen does happen.

  Kenneth W. Ford

  Nature, Law, Events

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• In its efforts to learn as much as possible about nature, modern physics has found that certain things can never be "known" with certainty. Much of our knowledge must always remain uncertain. The most we can know is in terms of probabilities.

  Richard P. Feynman

  Effort, Physics, Modern

  The Feynman Lectures on Physics (pp. 6-1 1)

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