The Man Who Made Probability Respectable

Writing in Nautilus, Slava Gerovitch relates how Andrei Kolmogorov came to effectively invent modern probability.

Gerovitch recounts Kolmogorov's betrayal of Nikolai Luzin, outlines the conceptual underpinnings Kolmogorov laid for probability, and describes the Russian's scheme to turn measures of metrical adherence into statistical portraits of poets.

And if these tidbits aren't enough to draw you in, Gerovitch's opening sentence just might:

If two statisticians were to lose each other in an infinite forest, the first thing they would do is get drunk.

Read the essay.