---
product_id: 56829747
title: "The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from: How Bayes' Rule ... Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy Paperback – 1 Sept. 2012"
brand: "sharon bertsch mcgrayne"
price: "VT10565"
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reviews_count: 10
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store_origin: VU
region: Vanuatu
---

# The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from: How Bayes' Rule ... Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy Paperback – 1 Sept. 2012

**Brand:** sharon bertsch mcgrayne
**Price:** VT10565
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- **What is this?** The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from: How Bayes' Rule ... Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy Paperback – 1 Sept. 2012 by sharon bertsch mcgrayne
- **How much does it cost?** VT10565 with free shipping
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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    A wellwritten account for the non-specialist reader
  

*by S***N on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 July 2011*

Whether or not you will enjoy this book depends on who you are. If you enjoy reading books about popular science, and trying to solve the occasional simple mathematical or logical puzzle, then you are ready for this one. If you want to understand the theory in any depth, or use it to solve problems, then you will need at least first-year undergraduate statistics to get started, much more to make progress -­ and a book with the formal mathematics, but begin with this one first to get a perspective on the field before going into detail.It is not obvious how you should use data to decide what to believe or how to act, and, as theories of statistics were developed, statisticians tried several different ways of thinking about data and the conclusions that could reasonably be drawn from them. Unfortunately the divisions of opinion (perhaps largely due to the personalities of the leading thinkers) resulted in acrimonious and inconclusive arguments.Thomas Bayes was a clergyman who died in 1761, leaving behind some mathematical papers. One of these was revised and corrected by Richard Price, so we don't know quite what Bayes wrote or what he meant. This paper was the origin of two things: (1) the widely-used and uncontroversial `Bayes Theorem', and (2) the controversial idea that probability could be expressed in terms of a measure of belief. In Bayesian  statistics the researcher puts a belief into numerical terms and refines this belief in the light of subsequently observed data. The 'subjective' aspect of the theory brought it into disrepute, where it lingered for nearly 200 years. Many people faced with practical problems found that Bayesian methods worked, but either they didn't know about Bayes or they preferred not to invite criticism by mentioning his name.In the last 60 years or so there has been a big revival in interest in Bayes theory, and it has been used to solve many problems that weren't amenable to traditional methods. The big barrier was that some of  the methods needed huge calculations, but with the availability of cheap, fast computers and new methods of calculation that barrier has almost disappeared.Sharon Bertsch Mcgrayne's book gives a very clear and thorough history of "the theory that would not die." As a practising statistician for more than 40 years I knew much of the published work that she has written about, and can vouch for her accuracy (there are a few corrections on her website), but until I read this book I did not have a clear idea of all of the  historical developments and controversies. My only criticism is that the bibliography is organised by chapters, rather than as one alphabetically ordered sequence.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    An excellent history, virtually no mathematical content
  

*by K***T on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 August 2012*

The first half of the book is strong, but the narrative of the present day is very cursory.The book is an excellently researched history of Bayes' Theorem and does a particularly good job of tracing its development at the hands of Price and Laplace. You also get a great flavour of the cryptographic efforts Second World War in general and the story of those personalities is told well.The case study of estimating the probability of a nuclear accident is fascinating and was one of the strongest parts of the book. It provides a great insight into the application of Bayes' Theorem to practical problems, and the process of breaking down the larger problem into its constituent parts.However as the story gets towards modern developments such as Kalman filters and Markov chain methods, developments are introduced at a pretty quick pace without much explanation. There is a marked contrast between the hasty way the Gibbs sampler is mentioned with the thoroughness with which cryptographic uses were explained earlier.Overall, a pretty good read as a history book but given its likely audience could perhaps have used more numerical illustrations.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    A fascinating tail
  

*by L***T on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 September 2024*

I have had Bayesians teach me statistics since 1986 and learned many new things in this book. But someone without a Bayesian background would still find this a fascinating story well told. Brilliant

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*Last updated: 2026-03-21*