Without the assistance of special colleagues, friends, and students as well as my wife, this book would not have been completed.
I owe a special debt to Sylvia Boyd, a lifelong friend who devoted hours of work in revision to get the book together, in many cases converting my rough notes into meaningful text.
Philip Davis Loring, my research assistant, helped by responding to specific research questions taking full advantage of the new computer technology. He solved research puzzles the keys of which were to be found on the shelves of Harvard’s Widener Library. He was able to bring to a close many open questions raised by my work with Barbara Finan who as my research assistant worked closely with me for many months.
Elaine Storella, a professor at Framingham State College, ably assisted me. Her frequent visits to France helped us to solve many puzzles that involved books not easily available outside France.
Many friends and colleagues have come to share my enthusiasm for the different ways in which numbers have come to affect the conduct of government and of daily living as well the exact sciences. Chief among these is George Smith, Acting Director of the Dibner Institute. Peter Buck of Harvard University also generously offered to be a reader.
This subject was developed in the course of my teaching over many years and derived in its form under the important influence of my experience as a member of The Research Group under the direction of the late Lorentz Kreuger. Among the members of that group who were most influential in their thinking about probability and statistics were Rainie Daston, Ted Porter, and Stephen Stigler.
In retrospect a most important influence on the development of my ideas are the writings of Ian Hacking. His ideas gave direction to my thinking and show how a negative series of comments can challenge and change one’s own formulations.
I am ever grateful to Judy Lajoie, administrator of the History of Science Department at Harvard University, for her help in providing tools of research and writing without which my jumble of research could never have been converted into this book.
Finally, and in many ways most importantly, I gladly acknowledge the most generous offer of my colleague and close friend, George Smith, to read the proofs for this book.
I did want to add in acknowledging the assistance of my coworkers that I am more than ordinarily grateful since in the last months my declining health and loss of vision have presented difficult challenges to the completion of this work.