Edwin Thompson Jaynes Quotes

United States, Physicist
July 5, 1922 – April, 30, 1998.

Edwin Thompson Jaynes was the Wayman Crow Distinguished Professor of Physics at Washington University in St. Louis. He wrote extensively on statistical mechanics and on foundations of probability and statistical inference, initiating in 1957 the maximum entropy interpretation of thermodynamics as being a particular application of more general Bayesian/information theory techniques . Jaynes strongly promoted the interpretation of probability theory as an extension of logic.

It appears to be a quite general principle that, whenever there is a randomized way of doing something, then there is a nonrandomized way that delivers better performance but requires more thought.

Edwin Thompson Jaynes
- Performance
- Delivers
The semiliterate on the next bar stool will tell you with absolute, arrogant assurance just how to solve the world's problems; while the scholar who has spent a lifetime studying their causes is not at all sure how to do this.

Edwin Thompson Jaynes
- Problems
- Causes
- Lifetime

In any field, the Establishment is seldom in pursuit of the truth, because it is composed of those who sincerely believe that they are already in possession of it.

Edwin Thompson Jaynes
- Believe
- Truth
- Possession
It was our use of probability theory as logic that has enabled us to do so easily what was impossible for those who thought of probability as a physical phenomenon associated with "randomness". Quite the opposite; we have thought of probability distributions as carriers of information.

Edwin Thompson Jaynes