Part 2/16:
In 1905, Russia was embroiled in political upheaval, with revolts demanding reform and the eventual fall of the Tsar. Amidst this turmoil, a deep divide extended into the intellectual realm, pitting two mathematicians against each other.
On the side of the Tsar was Pavel Nekrasov, known as the "Tsar of Probability." A devoutly religious man, Nekrasov believed that mathematics could explain divine will and free will alike. He argued that if the law of large numbers—a principle showing how averages of repeated independent events tend to stabilize—applied broadly, then social statistics could reflect acts of free will, and thus, free will could be scientifically measured.