Person: Cantelli, Francesco Paolo

Francesco Cantelli was an Italian mathematician who made contributions to the theory of probability.

Palermo Observatory, where Cantelli worked, had been quite famous.
Its most important discovery had been 100 years before Cantelli worked there, on 1 January 1801, when the asteroid Ceres was discovered.
Cantelli's investigation confirmed the hypothesis favouring the year 1301.
Cantelli's work in astronomy involved statistical analysis of data and his interests turned more towards the statistical style of mathematics and to applications of probability to astronomy and other areas.
In 1922, while still working as an actuary at the Istituti di Previdenza, Cantelli qualified to teach in universities.
In 1925 Cantelli was called to Naples where he taught actuarial and financial mathematics.
However others made important contributions, and a number of Italians, including Cantelli, Castelnuovo and de Finetti, did outstanding work in this area.
Although his name is frequently connected with the name of E Borel, Cantelli's approach to probability is very different from that of Borel.
Cantelli, in his work on the law of large numbers, was developing ideas which had been first suggested by Jacob Bernoulli in the 17th century.
Around the time that Cantelli worked on the law of large numbers, Borel was also interested in the topic.
In spite of these aspects, the Cantelli treatment of stochastic convergence turns out to be exceptionally transparent and quite satisfactory even with respect to the present expositions of the subject.
Financial mathematics was also a topic of Cantelli's research.

Born 20 December 1875, Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Died 21 July 1966, Rome, Italy.

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Astronomy, Origin Italy

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive