Savage Eli (3 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Haven, Shelley (illustrator). ISSN 1520-4111.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. 1st Edition. Original cloth. Ex-library: white ink number on spine and small label on front cover with clear piece of tape covering them. Ink stamp on flyleaf, half-title and title page. Pouch and barcode on rear pastedown. Else Very Good+, without dust jacket. 'While still in Chicago, Lester met Jimmie Savage (then on the mathematics faculty there) and surprised him by showing that bold play is not uniquely optimal in classical Red & Black (roulette). Jimmie was impressed and invited Lester to join him in trying to better understand the probabilistic structure of gambling situations. This encounter developed into a collaboration generating several key papers and culminating (in 1965) in the ground-breaking monograph How to Gamble if You Must (Inequalities for Stochastic Processes) which presented a coherent mathematical theory of gambling processes and optimal behavior in gambling situations, pointing out their relevance to traditional approaches to probability. In consultation with Bruno de Finetti and under his influence, Dubins and Savage presented their theory in the finitely additive framework in order to bypass measurability technicalities inherent in maximizing an uncountable set of functions in searching for optimal strategies. Lester paid tribute to Jimmie Savage to his remarkable intellect and scholarship, and to their mutual friendship in a beautifully phrased preface to the Dover edition of the book which appeared in 1976, five years after Jimmie's untimely death at the age of 54' (David Gilat, Ted Hill, & Bill Sudderth, 'Obituary for Lester Eli Dubins, 1920-2010'). Savage was 'one of the few people I have met whom I would unhesitatingly call a genius' (Milton & Rose Friedman, Two Lucky People: Memoirs, 1998, p. 146).

No Binding. Condition: Very Good. Quarto, two pages, old folds, postal markings on stamp-less address leaf, "free franked", in very good, clean and legible condition. Savage, recently returned from Green Bay, writes to Dudley seeking the post of Indian Agent there and comments upon the Oneida, York and Buffalo Indians, and the removal of the latter. "My Dear Sir, ? I hasten to answer your enquiry as to Mr. Colton he is a gentleman that I saw but once at Green Bay and that was two days before I left there. When in New York about a month before I saw you he (Colton) made himself known to me and told me the great attachment he had for the Indians and that he intended to go to Washington this winter and vindicate their cause, and publish a series of numbers on the ill treatment of the Indians, I encouraged him in the measure, for I supposed that discouragement was equal to encouragement believing that he was one of those who was sent out to spy out the difficulty between the Government and the Indians, for the purpose of raising the Indian Question in this State for political purposes this is all that I know of Mr. Colton. Since I saw you I have understood that the Oneida Indians were not satisfied with the Report of the Commissioners and that some of them will be at Washington this winter, the information that I conveyed to you was from Gen Root and not from the Indians since then I have learned they are anxious for more land, as I told you it is all the White Man and not the Red Man. According to your wishes if I go to New York this winter I shall call upon Mr. J. D. Ogden. I may be at Washington in the course of the Session after the office of Indian Agent at Green Bay if Col. Stambaugh appointment is not confirmed as it is said that it will not be owing to his neglect of duty while at the Bay how true this may be I do not know. It is an office that I should like very well if consistent with the Power to give it to me and it would be of great importance to this state upon the account of the Removal of the York Indians for they feel a great interest in having an agent from this state. I am sure that it would assist much in the Removal of the Buffalo Indians. It is an office that I have thought of much and it was suggested to me when at the Bay I should wish to hear from you ?".