The Gauss' Bayes Factor
Giulio D'Agostini
Università “La Sapienza” and INFN, Roma, Italia
(giulio.dagostini@roma1.infn.it,
http://www.roma1.infn.it/~dagos)
Abstract:
In Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus
conicis solem ambientum
Gauss presents, as a theorem and with emphasis,
the rule to update the ratio of probabilities
of complementary hypotheses, in the light
of an observed event which could be due to either of them.
Although he focused on a priori equally probable hypotheses, in order
to solve the problem on which he was interested in, the theorem can be
easily extended to the general case. But, curiously,
I have not been able to find references to his result in the literature.
(H. Poincaré)
