[Verse 1] In seventeen eighty-seven, when our nation was so young The Federalist Papers by "Publius" were sung Hamilton and Madison and Jay wrote most with care But twelve essays remained a mystery hanging in the air [Chorus] Bayesian analysis, counting words so small Function words like "while" and "upon" can tell us all Word frequency patterns show the author's secret way Madison wrote all twelve, that's what the data say [Verse 2] Frederick Mosteller and Wallace had a plan in mind Use statistics and computers, see what they could find They studied how each author used their little words The unconscious patterns that in every sentence stirred [Chorus] Bayesian analysis, counting words so small Function words like "while" and "upon" can tell us all Word frequency patterns show the author's secret way Madison wrote all twelve, that's what the data say [Bridge] "Whilst" and "enough" and "upon" tell the tale Building probability when other methods fail Each author has a fingerprint in how they speak The algorithm found the truth that scholars used to seek [Verse 3] They built distributions from the known written text Compared the disputed papers to see which matched the best With high confidence the answer finally came clear Stylometry was born from this breakthrough year [Final Chorus] Bayesian analysis, counting words so small Function words like "while" and "upon" can tell us all Word frequency patterns show the author's secret way Madison wrote all twelve, the mystery's solved today
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