2025/06/12 by Martin Klazar, Klazar, Martin
Social Sciences · #60A05 #FOS: Mathematics #Mathematics Education and Teaching Techniques #Probabilistic logic #Probabilistic relevance model #Probability (math.PR) #Proofreading #Statistical model #Upper and lower bounds
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2506.11358
openalex publication_date 2025/06/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
In 1975, G. Pólya suggested that if two proofreaders found a and b errors in a text, of which c errors were found by both of them, then a reasonable approximation of the unknown number e of all errors is e≈ ab/c. We justify this formula by constructing a realistic model of proofreaders and estimating the efficiency of this model with the help of the bound on large deviations in the Probabilistic Method. In conclusion we discuss the distinction between realistic and probabilistic models of problems.