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Article ID: CBB000850086

Bagatelle as the Inspiration for Galton's Quincunx (2006)

Pritchard, Chris (Author)

British Society for the History of Mathematics Bulletin
Volume: 21
Pages: 102--110

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This paper considers the question of how Francis Galton came to devise the quincunx, a pin-board that simulates the effect of a large number of Bernoulli trials to yield an empirical normal curve. It suggests that the likely inspiration for the design was some variant of bagatelle. The argument forms a small part of an Open University doctoral thesis (May 2005), which revealed the extent of the support Galton received from George Howard Darwin as he developed the concept of statistical regression.

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Description The quincunx is “a pin-board that simulates the effect of a large number of Bernoulli trials to yield an empirical normal curve.” (from the abstract)

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