Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Math Encounters: "Bayes’ Theorem: Looking for Gold in all the Right Places"
featuring Allen Butler
Wednesday, March 12
How do you find a sunken treasure ship using scientific methods? You use Bayes’ Theorem (aka Bayes’ Rule), which appears simple enough, but has far-reaching consequences. Join Allen Butler, former President and CEO of Daniel H. Wagner Associates and Treasurer of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), as he provides a little of the history behind Bayes’ Theorem, a derivation of its mathematical basis, and a description of the less formal basis where it is viewed as a form of evidential or inferential reasoning. Plus, hear the amazing story of how Dr. Butler and his company used Bayes’ Theorem in the location and recovery of the “Ship of Gold,” the SS Central America, a side-wheel steamer carrying nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, which sank in a hurricane two hundred miles off the Carolina coast in September 1857.
Special introduction by Laurence Penn, Founding Partner and Vice Chairman of Ellington Management Group.
Math Encounters is MoMath’s popular free public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics. This program is funded by Simons Foundation International and administered by the Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture division.
Math Encounters: "Bayes’ Theorem: Looking for Gold in all the Right Places"
featuring Allen Butler
Wednesday, March 12
How do you find a sunken treasure ship using scientific methods? You use Bayes’ Theorem (aka Bayes’ Rule), which appears simple enough, but has far-reaching consequences. Join Allen Butler, former President and CEO of Daniel H. Wagner Associates and Treasurer of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), as he provides a little of the history behind Bayes’ Theorem, a derivation of its mathematical basis, and a description of the less formal basis where it is viewed as a form of evidential or inferential reasoning. Plus, hear the amazing story of how Dr. Butler and his company used Bayes’ Theorem in the location and recovery of the “Ship of Gold,” the SS Central America, a side-wheel steamer carrying nearly six hundred passengers returning from the California Gold Rush, which sank in a hurricane two hundred miles off the Carolina coast in September 1857.
Special introduction by Laurence Penn, Founding Partner and Vice Chairman of Ellington Management Group.
Math Encounters is MoMath’s popular free public presentation series celebrating the spectacular world of mathematics. This program is funded by Simons Foundation International and administered by the Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture division.
