b. 18 September 1752 Paris
d. 9 January 1833 Paris
There were a number of different methods proposed to find the most
likely value of a measured quantity. Legendre proposed the method of
least squares. This appeared on pages
72-75 of the appendix
to his work Nouvelles
M�thodes pour la Det�rmination des Orbites des
Com�tes published in 1805. The remainder of the appendix
applies the technique to the measure of the degrees of the
meridian.
Legendre read on 24 September 1811 a paper to the Academy with the title "Pour trouver le milieu le plus probable entre les r�sultats de diff�rentes observations." This was printed in the M�moires de la Classe des Sciences Math�matiques et Physiques de l'Institut (Vol. 11, 2nd part), pp. 149-154.
A translation of the Appendix into English by George Harvey was published in The Edinburgh Philosophical Journal Vol 7. Pages 292-301.
By 1820 we have Nouvelles m�thodes pour la d�termination de l'orbite des com�tes. Second supplement. Paris.
Several other works contributed to the theory of statistics. These are