Thomas Bayes, one of the leading mathematical lights in computing today, differs from most of his colleagues: He has argued that the existence of God can be derived from equations. His most important paper was published by someone else. And he's been dead for 241 years.
Yet the 18th-century clergyman's theories on probability have become a major part of the mathematical foundations of application development.
"Bayesian research is used to make the best gambles on where I should flow with computation and bandwidth," said Eric Horvitz, senior researcher and group manager of the Adaptive Systems & Interaction Group at Microsoft Research. "I personally believe that probability is at the foundation of any intelligence in an uncertain world where you can't know everything."
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