The method was the culmination of several advances that took place during the course of the eighteenth century: The combination of different observations as being the best estimate of the true value; errors decrease with aggregation rather than increase, perhaps first expressed by Roger Cotes in 1722.
這個方法是在十八世紀期間一些進步的集大成： 不同觀測值的組合是真實值的最佳估計；多次觀測會減少誤差而不是增加，也許在1722年由Roger Cotes首先闡明。