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Vector Scores Are Not Probabilities: Likelihood Ratio Calibration for Hybrid Search
Research7 min read

Vector Scores Are Not Probabilities: Likelihood Ratio Calibration for Hybrid Search

by Jaepil Jeong | March 25, 2026

A cosine similarity of 0.85 tells you an angle, not a probability. We show how to transform vector similarity scores into calibrated relevance probabilities using distributional statistics that ANN indexes already compute — completing the probabilistic unification of text and vector retrieval.

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Why Sigmoid? The Mathematical Inevitability Behind Bayesian BM25
Research11 min read

Why Sigmoid? The Mathematical Inevitability Behind Bayesian BM25

by Jaepil Jeong | February 23, 2026

Sigmoid is not a design choice — it is a mathematical theorem. We show why the sigmoid function is the unique valid transform for converting BM25 scores to probabilities, completing Robertson's Probability Ranking Principle after 50 years.

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Building a Probabilistic Search Engine: Bayesian BM25 and Hybrid Search
Tech15 min read

Building a Probabilistic Search Engine: Bayesian BM25 and Hybrid Search

by Jaepil Jeong | February 1, 2026

Modern search systems struggle to combine lexical matching with semantic understanding. We explore how we built a probabilistic ranking framework in Cognica Database that transforms BM25 scores into calibrated probabilities, enabling principled fusion of text and vector search results.

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