Details
MOIVRE, Abraham de (1667-1754). Miscellanea analytica de seriebus et quadraturis. London: J. Tonson & J. Watts, 1730.
4o (244 x 190 mm). Woodcut diagrams in text. Contemporary calf gilt (joints rubbed, some wear to corners).
FIRST EDITION of Moivre's first published attempt at approximating the terms of a binomial expansion, or the normal approximation to the binomial distribution. This anonymous work is often regarded as the original appearance of the "normal curve." He later completed his attempt and published his solution in a pamphlet entitled Approximatio ad summam terminorum binomii (a + b)n in seriem expansi (1733). "Moivre's discovery greatly clarified the concept of probability in his own time, and became the most fruitful single instrument of discovery used in probability theory and statistics for the next two centuries" (Norman). Stigler, pp. 70-88; Norman 1531.
4
FIRST EDITION of Moivre's first published attempt at approximating the terms of a binomial expansion, or the normal approximation to the binomial distribution. This anonymous work is often regarded as the original appearance of the "normal curve." He later completed his attempt and published his solution in a pamphlet entitled Approximatio ad summam terminorum binomii (a + b)