Talk:Probability theory

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Probability theory was a good article, but it was removed from the list as it no longer met the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.
Review: July 12, 2007.

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What is "probability"?

The article starts with: "Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability." By clicking on the last word, we learn that "Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true." So, combining these two definitions, we now know that

Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true.

This doesn't make sense. I think the two articles should be merged, and the term "probability" should not be defined as being a branch of mathematics. --Lambiam 00:37, 8 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Probality is the chance of an event to occur. Like if you roll a die, let's say you wan't to get a certain number. For example, if you want get a number, let's say, on a 6 headed dice, there will be a 1/6 chance. But it could also change based on how the die is shaped. A number could get closer and closer to a number, (As defined as a variable in my example) IF the probability is going to increase every time, but cannot reach a certain probability. Evergreen tenal (talk) 22:06, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hat note at probability uses the wording "mathematical field of probability". Less redundant at least. Slywriter (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dice vs Die?

When editing the article yesterday, I completely forgot about the fact that die is the singular form of dice. I pondered why I rarely ever hear the term "die" compared to "dice" (hence me forgetting it exists) and decided to read up a bit on "dice vs die". From what I have gathered, die is the original singular form of dice, but dice has also become an acceptable singular form, especially in modern English (as stated in multiple online dictionaries). Does anyone have any opinions or further information on this matter? Wikipolym (talk) 08:57, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I am used to and prefer "die" as the singular form of dice, and an old discussion at the dice article displayed some statistics that pointed in favor of the usage "roll a die" vs "roll a dice". However, the same discussion has been resurrected from time to time at that article's talk page, with various people pointing out (as you noted) that OED and other dictionaries accept dice as both singular and plural. At this stage, I've finally decided to stand off from enforcing one vs the other, since it's clear what's being described in this article. But it would be ideal if there was uniform usage of "die" vs "dice" in the singular case on wikipedia.—Myasuda (talk) 14:13, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Revert

I don't agree with [1] per WP:CAPTION. Logoshimpo (talk) 02:45, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The very first point of WP:CAPTION is that a caption "clearly identifies the subject of the picture". A sentence that looks like it was randomly drawn from the middle of an article does not do that. A sentence fragment that is clearly intended as a description of what the illustration shows does. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]