Abstract
In A History of the Mathematical Theory of Probability (1865), I. Todhunter tells that among the “learned conversations” of the Florentine gentlemen the following question was once proposed: “A horse is really worth a hundred crowns, one person estimated it at ten crowns and another at a thousand; which of the two made the more extravagant estimate?” When consulted on this matter, Galileo pronounced the two estimates to be equally extravagant, “because the ratio of a thousand to a hundred is the same as the ratio of a hundred to ten”. A priest named Nozzolini thought that the higher estimate is more mistaken, since “the excess of a thousand above a hundred is greater than that of a hundred above ten.” (p. 5).Todhunter's comment on this issue is interesting: it does not appear to him that “the discussion is of any scientific interest or value”.
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