VII. On the theory of local probability, applied to straight lines drawn at random in a plane; the methods used being also extended to the proof of certain new theorems in the integral calculus

Abstract

1. The new Theory of Local or Geometrical Probability, so far as it is known, seems to present, in a remarkable degree, the same distinguishing features which characterize those portions of the general Theory of Probability which we owe to the great philosophers of the past generation. The rigorous precision, as well as the extreme beauty of the methods and results, the extent of the demands made on our mathematical resources, even by cases apparently of the simplest kind, the subtlety and delicacy of the reasoning, which seem peculiar to that wonderful application of modern analysis— ce calcul delicat , as it has been aptly described by Laplace—reappear, under new forms, in this, its latest development. The first trace which we can discover of the Theory of Local Probability seems to be the celebrated problem of Buffon, the great naturalist— a given rod being placed at random on a space ruled with equidistant parallel lines, to find the chance of its crossing one of the lines. Although the subject was noticed so early, and though Buffon’s and one or two similar questions have been considered by Laplace, no real attention seems to have been bestowed upon it till within the last few years, when this new field of research has been entered upon by several English mathematicians, among whom the names of Sylvester and Woolhouse are particularly distinguished. It is true that in a few cases differences of opinion have arisen as to the principles, and discordant results have been arrived at, as in the now celebrated three-point problem, by Mr. Woolhouse, and the four-point problem of Professor Sylvester; but all feel that this arises, not from any inherent ambiguity in the subject matter, but from the weakness of the instrument employed; our undisciplined conceptions of a novel subject requiring to be repeatedly and patiently reviewed, tested, and corrected by the light of experience and comparison, before they are purged from all latent error. The object of the present paper is, principally, the application of the Theory of Probability to straight lines drawn at random in a plane; a branch of the subject which has not yet been investigated. It will be necessary to begin by some remarks on the general principles of Local Probability. Some portion of what follows I have already given elsewhere.