Law of Large Numbers
In probability theory, a theorem that describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times. According to the law, the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed.
Origin
Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli first proved the law in Ars Conjectandi (The Art of Conjecturing), published in 1713, eight years after his death. Bernoulli had worked on the proof for over twenty years, developing rigorous mathematics to demonstrate that as the number of trials increases, the observed frequency of an event converges toward its theoretical probability. His work built on earlier observations by Dutch chemist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and established a cornerstone of probability theory.