2013 Canadian Historical Association Presidential Address: On Local History and Local Historical Knowledge

The Local Limit Theorem: A Historical Perspective

The local limit theorem describes how the density of a sum of random variables follows the normal curve. However the local limit theorem is often seen as a curiosity of no particular importance when compared with the central limit theorem. Nevertheless the local limit theorem came first and is in fact associated with the foundation of probability theory by Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fer...

ESTS Presidential address Pneumonectomy: historical perspective and prospective insight

I would like to thank you for the honour of electing me as your President. My purpose will be today to share with you some considerations about an operation that has crossed the 20th century by typifying the greatness and servitude of thoracic surgery, while keeping many of its mysteries at the beginning of the 21st, I mean pneumonectomy. The first pneumonectomy was performed in multiple stages...

Historical Presidential Betting Markets

W agering on political outcomes has a long history in the United States. As Henry David Thoreau (1848 [1967], p. 36) noted: “All voting is a sort of gaming, . . . and betting naturally accompanies it.” This paper analyzes the large and often well-organized markets for betting on presidential elections that operated between 1868 and 1940. Over $165 million (in 2002 dollars) was wagered in one el...

The Knowledge Level (Presidential Address)

This is the first presidential address of AAAI, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. In the grand scheme of history, even the history of artificial intelligence (AI), this is surely a minor event. The field this scientific society represents has been thriving for quite some time. No doubt the society itself will make solid contributions to the health of our field But it is too ...

An Historical Assessment of US Presidential Elections