 Ars Conjectandi ( Latin for " The Art of <unk> " ) is a book on combinatorics and mathematical probability written by Jacob Bernoulli and published in 1713 , eight years after his death , by his nephew , Niklaus Bernoulli . The seminal work consolidated , apart from many combinatorial topics , many central ideas in probability theory , such as the very first version of the law of large numbers : indeed , it is widely regarded as the founding work of that subject . It also addressed problems that today are classified in the twelvefold way and added to the subjects ; consequently , it has been dubbed an important historical landmark in not only probability but all combinatorics by a plethora of mathematical historians . The importance of this early work had a large impact on both contemporary and later mathematicians ; for example , Abraham de Moivre . 
