A history of the theory of errors (Q2713272)

The author lists 32 of his works devoted to the theory of errors. These have mainly appeared in English, and frequently in the Archive for the History of Exact Sciences. The present article is in the nature of a summary of these 32 papers. The focus is on the method of least squares, both in its error theoretic and probabilistic aspects. The author begins the error theory with Ptolemy. He reiterates his personal and forceful views on the claims to priority of Gauss and Legendre (p. 324), and states (p. 325) that within least squares normality of the distribution of errors plays a special role in as much as it is necessary and sufficient for efficiency of estimates. There are 72 references in all.