My favourite fellow of the ...

My favourite fellow of the Royal Society is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, an obscure 18th-century Kent clergyman and a brilliant mathematician who devised a complex equation known as the Bayes theorem, which can be used to work out probability distributions. It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis.
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 Bill Bryson

Quotes from the same author

I love everything about motels. I can't help myself. I still get excited every time I slip a key into a motel room door and fling it open.
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 Bill Bryson
Open your refrigerator door, and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the 18th century. The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place, indeed.
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 Bill Bryson
18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available.
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 Bill Bryson
My mother only ever said two things. She said,'I don't know, dear.'And she said,'Can I get you a sandwich, honey?
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 Bill Bryson
For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.
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 Bill Bryson