had the game continued and assuming that both players would have had an equal chance of winning subsequent points. The prize money could then be split according to these calculated probabilities.
Prior to the seventeenth century the laws of probability were defined by the intuition and experience of gamblers, but Pascal entered into an exchange of letters with Fermat with the aim of discovering the mathematical rules which more accurately describe the laws of chance. Three centuries later Bertrand Russell would comment on this apparent oxymoron: ‘How dare we speak of the laws of chance? Is not chance the antithesis of all law?’
The Frenchmen analysed Gombaud’s question and soon realised that it was a relatively trivial problem which could be solved by rigorously defining all the potential outcomes of the game and assigning an individual probability to each one. Both Pascal and Fermat were capable of independently solving Gombaud’s problem, but their collaboration speeded up the discovery of a solution and led them to a deeper exploration of other more subtle and sophisticated questions related to probability.
Probability problems are sometimes controversial because the mathematical answer, the true answer, is often contrary to what intuition might suggest. This failure of intuition is perhaps surprising because ‘survival of the fittest’ ought to provide a strong evolutionary pressure in favour of a brain naturally capable of analysing questions of probability. You can imagine our ancestors stalking a young deer, and weighing up whether or not to attack. What is the risk that a stag is nearby ready to defend its offspring and injure its assailant? On the other hand what is the chance that a better opportunity for a meal might arise if this one is judged too risky? A talent for analysing probability should be part of our genetic makeup and yet often our intuition misleads us.
One of the most counterintuitive probability problems concerns the likelihood of sharing birthdays. Imagine a football pitch with 23 people on it, the players and the referee. What is the probability that any two of those 23 people share the same birthday? With 23 people and 365 birthdays to chose from, it would seem highly unlikely that anybody would share the same birthday. If asked to put a figure on it most people would guess a probability of perhaps 10% at most. In fact, the actual answer is just over 50% – that is to say, on the balance of probability, it is more likely than not that two people on the pitch will share the same birthday.
The reason for this high probability is that what matters more than the number of people is the number of ways people can be paired. When we look for a shared birthday, we need to look at pairs of people not individuals. Whereas there are only 23 people on the pitch, there are 253 pairs of people. For example, the first person can be paired with any of the other 22 people giving 22 pairings to start with. Then, the second person can be paired with any of the remaining 21 people (we have already counted the second person paired with the first person so the number of possible pairings is reduced by one), giving an additional 21 pairings. Then, the third person can be paired with any of the remaining 20 people, giving an additional 20 pairings, and so on until we reach a total of 253 pairs.
The fact that the probability of a shared birthday within a group of 23 people is more than 50% seems intuitively wrong, and yet it is mathematically undeniable. Strange probabilities such as this are exactly what bookmakers and gamblers rely on in order to exploit the unwary. The next time you are at a party with more than 23 people you might want to make a wager that two people in the room will share a birthday. Please note that with a group of 23 people the probability is only slightly more than 50%, but the probability rapidly rises as the group increases in size. Hence, with a party of 30 people it is certainly worth betting that two of them will share the same birthday.
Fermat and Pascal founded the essential rules which govern all games of chance and which can be used by gamblers to define perfect playing and betting strategies. Furthermore, these laws of probability have found applications in a whole series of situations, ranging from speculating on the stock market to estimating the probability of a nuclear accident. Pascal was even convinced that he could use his theories to justify a belief in God. He stated that ‘the excitement that a gambler feels when making a bet is equal to the amount he might win multiplied by the probability of winning it’. He then argued that the possible prize of eternal happiness has an infinite value and that the probability of entering heaven by leading a virtuous life, no matter how small, is certainly finite. Therefore, according to Pascal’s definition, religion was a game of infinite excitement and one worth playing, because multiplying an infinite prize by a finite probability results in infinity.
As well as sharing the parentage of probability theory, Fermat was deeply involved in the founding of another area of mathematics, calculus. Calculus is the ability to calculate the rate of change, known as the derivative, of one quantity with respect to another. For example, the rate of change of distance with respect to time is better known simply as velocity. For mathematicians the quantities tend to be abstract and intangible but the consequences of Fermat’s work were to revolutionise science. Fermat’s mathematics enabled scientists to better understand the concept of velocity and its relation to other fundamental quantities such as acceleration – the rate of change of velocity with respect to time.
Economics is a subject heavily influenced by calculus. Inflation is the rate of change of price, known as the derivative of price, and furthermore economists are often interested in the rate of change of inflation, known as the second derivative of price. These terms are frequently used by politicians and the mathematician Hugo Rossi once observed the following: ‘In the fall of 1972 President Nixon announced that the rate of increase of inflation was decreasing. This was the first time a sitting president used a third derivative to advance his case for re-election.’
For centuries Isaac Newton was thought to have discovered calculus independently and without any knowledge of Fermat’s work, but in 1934 Louis Trenchard Moore discovered a note which set the record straight and gave Fermat the credit he deserves. Newton wrote that he developed his calculus based on ‘Monsieur Fermat’s method of drawing tangents’. Ever since the seventeenth century calculus has been used to describe Newton’s law of gravity and his laws of mechanics, which depend on distance, velocity and acceleration.
The discovery of calculus and probability theory would have been more than enough to earn Fermat a place in the mathematicians’ hall of fame, but his greatest achievement was in yet another branch of mathematics. While calculus has since been used to send rockets to the moon, and while probability theory has been used for risk assessment by insurance companies, Fermat’s greatest love was for a subject which is largely useless – the theory of numbers. Fermat was driven by an obsession to understand the properties of and the relationships between numbers. This is the purest and most ancient form of mathematics and Fermat was building on a body of knowledge that had been handed down to him from Pythagoras.
The Evolution of Number Theory
After Pythagoras’ death the concept of mathematical proof rapidly spread across the civilised world, and two centuries after his School was burnt to the ground the hub of mathematical study had moved from Croton to the city of Alexandria. In 332 BC, having conquered Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt, Alexander the Great decided that he would build a capital city that would be the most magnificent in the world. Alexandria was indeed a spectacular metropolis but not immediately a centre of learning. It was only when Alexander died and his half-brother Ptolemy I ascended the throne of Egypt that Alexandria became home to the world’s first-ever university. Mathematicians and other intellectuals flocked to Ptolemy’s city of culture, and although they were certainly drawn by the reputation of the university, the main attraction was the Alexandrian Library.
The Library was the idea of Demetrius Phalaerus, an unpopular orator who had been forced to flee Athens, and who eventually found sanctuary in Alexandria. He persuaded Ptolemy to gather together all the great books, assuring him that the great minds would follow. Once the tomes of Egypt and Greece had been installed, agents scoured Europe and Asia Minor in search of further volumes of knowledge. Even tourists to Alexandria could not escape the voracious appetite of the Library. Upon entering the city, their books were confiscated and taken to the scribes. The books were copied so that while the original was donated to the Library, a duplicate could graciously be given to the original owner. This meticulous replication