Der Weltverkehr und seine Mittel

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 100624364X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-33077

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Merckel, Curt http://d-nb.info/gnd/1024684814

Title:: Der Weltverkehr und seine Mittel

Edition:: Zehnte, durch einen Nachtrag ergänzte Auflage, Sonderausgabe aus dem Buch der Erfindungen, Gewerbe und Industrien

Place of publication:: Leipzig

Publisher:: Verlag von Otto Spamer

Year of publication:: 1913

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (X, 981 Seiten)

Digitisation:: 2017

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Die Eisenbahnen

Collection:: Economics Books

270 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cmar. XVI a person who draws a card from the hat receiving the prize is two to one; for of the three equally probable drawings, two are blanks. In general terms the odds in favor of one event as com- pared with another are said to be m to n when there are m + n equally probable cases in which one or the other of the two events may happen, and among these m + n cases there are m cases such that the first event would happen, and n cases such that the second event would happen. The chance of the first event is then 737 and the chance of the second is -»=. The m and the n cases are, it should be noted, assumed to be mutually exclusive." Probability is thus not merely an affair of pure mathe- matics, as is so often imagined. It is, first of all, a matter of concrete human estimate. What are called the mathe- matics of probability apply only to arrays of equally prob- able combinations, and consist in calculating the number of these which are favorable or unfavorable to a given event. The mathematics of probability never establish a prob- ability of itself, but always rest on some human estimate of chances which are equal to start with. Like every other branch of applied mathematics, it must depend on having its raw material supplied from without. By mathematics we seem to discover that the chance of throwing double sixes with two dice is one in thirty-six. But this calcula- tion rests on the hypothesis that, in some person’s esti- mation, each die is equally liable to fall on any one of its six faces. Starting with this assumption, it is easy to show that in throwing two dice there are thirty-six equally 1 Tt often happens that we cannot divide the fleld of probability into separate cases all equally probable. In such a case the mind is forced to make an estimate. For instance, the probability of an event may be said to be one third against the field if the estimator’s state of opinion toward the field is exactly similar to his state of mind toward another field in which the division into three separate combinations 4s possible and one of them favors the event in ques- tion. If the state of mind is similar but less definite, then the chance is “ about ”’ one third but not definite.

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