A bit of both. I knew about Bayes’ theorem for a while, as a not-terribly-exciting mathematical statement. But I had a few discussions about the philosophy of it, if you will, when taking a class on information theory. That sort of thing is interesting to read about, and that’s how I ended up typing it into Google.
By far the most useful introduction to Bayes’ theorem I’ve read, though, was in this short story, which I found later. I don’t often use Bayes’ theorem, but when I do, I prefer to do the calculation in my head, because it impresses people. This is much easier to do as an odds calculation, the way Brennan does it in the story (actually, the odds calculation is even easier than what Brennan does—keeping track of the sixteenths is excessive). Somehow this method didn’t occur to me until I read the story and reverse-engineered it. Now I think of the story every time I use it.
Hello Kindly! Were you taking a probability class or just interested in Bayes?
A bit of both. I knew about Bayes’ theorem for a while, as a not-terribly-exciting mathematical statement. But I had a few discussions about the philosophy of it, if you will, when taking a class on information theory. That sort of thing is interesting to read about, and that’s how I ended up typing it into Google.
By far the most useful introduction to Bayes’ theorem I’ve read, though, was in this short story, which I found later. I don’t often use Bayes’ theorem, but when I do, I prefer to do the calculation in my head, because it impresses people. This is much easier to do as an odds calculation, the way Brennan does it in the story (actually, the odds calculation is even easier than what Brennan does—keeping track of the sixteenths is excessive). Somehow this method didn’t occur to me until I read the story and reverse-engineered it. Now I think of the story every time I use it.