“Simpson was the first to attempt a mathematical proof of the law of large numbers; i.e., that the mean result of several observations is nearer to the truth than any single observations. A key feature of the paper was that Simpson chose to focus “not on the observations themselves . . . but on the error made in the observations, on the differences between the recorded observations and the actual position of the body being observed. . . [This] was the critical step that was to open the door to an applicable quantification of uncertainty” (Stigler 1986, 90-91). “Simpson was the first to characterize the errors in observations as independent events, taking positive and negative values with equal probabilities, and the first to provide a mathematical expression for the probability that the error in the mean result will lie between assigned limits” (Origins of Cyberspace, no 16.)

Hook and Norman, Origins of Cyberspace, no. 16