E338 -- Sur la probabilite des sequences dans la lotterie Genoise
(On the probability of sequences in the Genoise Lottery)
Summary:
The Genoise lottery was the first number lottery, and as such drew much attention from 18th Century mathematicians.
Its chief expositors were Nicolas Bernoulli and Euler. Euler himself devoted at least five papers to the subject:
E412,
E600,
E812, and
E813, as well as this one.
Here Euler investigates the probability that various sequences of numbers will be drawn.
Publication:
-
Originally published in Memoires de l'academie des sciences de Berlin 21, 1767, pp. 191-230
-
Opera Omnia: Series 1, Volume 7, pp. 113 - 152
Documents Available:
- Original publication: E338
- E338 can be viewed or downloaded from Digitalisierte Akademieschriften und Schriften zur Geschichte der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, which includes serial publications of the Prussian Academy of Science in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
- Richard Pulskamp has put together a fantastic page on Euler's Probability & Statistics, including a lot of interesting background and historical work. The page includes a
translation of E338.
- Rob Bradley
of Adelphi Univeristy has written an excellent paper,
Euler and the Genoese Lottery
in which he examens a significant fraction of Euler's work on probability.
- Euler wrote four other papers on the Genoese lottery:
- E412, Solution d'une questione tres dificle dans le calcul des probabilites
- E600, Solutio quarundam quaestionum difficilorum in calculo probabilis
- E812, Relexiones sur une espese singulier de loterie nommee loterie genoise
- E813, Analyse d'un probleme du calcul des probabilites
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