From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search

Statistics is the theory and application of mathematics to the scientific method including hypothesis generation, experimental design, sampling, data collection, data summarization, estimation, prediction and inference from those results to the population from which the experimental sample was drawn. This article lists statisticians who have been instrumental in the development of theoretical and applied statistics.

NameNationalityBirthDeathContributionReferences
Al-KindiAbassid Caliphate801873Developed the first code breaking algorithm based on frequency analysis. He wrote a book entitled "Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages", containing detailed discussions on statistics[1]
Graunt, JohnEnglish16201674Pioneer of demography who produced the first life table[2]
Bayes, ThomasEnglish17021761Developed the interpretation of probability now known as Bayesian probability[3]
Laplace, Pierre-SimonFrench17491827Co-invented Bayesian statistics. Invented exponential families (Laplace transform), conjugate prior distributions, asymptotic analysis of estimators (including negligibility of regular priors). Used maximum-likelihood and posterior-mode estimation and considered (robust) loss functions
Playfair, WilliamScottish17591823Pioneer of statistical graphics
Carl Friedrich GaussGerman17771855Invented least squares estimation methods (with Legendre). Used loss functions and maximum-likelihood estimation
Quetelet, AdolpheBelgian17961874Pioneered the use of probability and statistics in the social sciences
Nightingale, FlorenceEnglish18201910Applied statistical analysis to health problems, contributing to the establishment of epidemiology and public health practice. Developed statistical graphics especially for mobilizing public opinion. First female member of the Royal Statistical Society.
Galton, FrancisEnglish18221911Invented the concepts of standard deviation, correlation, regression[4][5]
Thiele, Thorvald N.Danish18381910Introduced cumulants and the term "likelihood". Introduced a Kalman filter in time-series
Peirce, Charles SandersAmerican18391914Formulated modern statistics in "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" (1877–1878) and "A Theory of Probable Inference" (1883). With a repeated measures design, introduced blinded, controlled randomized experiments (before Fisher). Invented optimal design for experiments on gravity, in which he "corrected the means". He used correlation, smoothing, and improved the treatment of outliers. Introduced terms "confidence" and "likelihood" (before Neyman and Fisher). While largely a frequentist, Peirce's possible world semantics introduced the "propensity" theory of probability. See the historical books of Stephen Stigler
Edgeworth, Francis YsidroIrish18451926Revived exponential families (Laplace transforms) in statistics. Extended Laplace's (asymptotic) theory of maximum-likelihood estimation. Introduced basic results on information, which were extended and popularized by R. A. Fisher
Pearson, KarlEnglish18571936Numerous innovations, including the development of the Pearson chi-squared test and the Pearson correlation. Founded the Biometrical Society and Biometrika, the first journal of mathematical statistics and biometry[6][7][8][9]
Spearman, CharlesEnglish18631945Extended the Pearson correlation coefficient to the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient[10]
Gosset, William Sealy (known as "Student")English18761937Discovered the Student t distribution and invented the Student's t-test[11]
Anderson, Oskar Johann Viktor (also known as Anderson, Oskar Nikolaevich)Russian, Bulgarian, German18871960A leading representative of the so-called Continental School of statistics. Invented the variate difference method for analyzing time series at the same time but independently from Gosset. A pioneer of random sampling in demographics and of quantitative methods applied to socio-economic sciences.[12][13][14][15]
Fisher, RonaldEnglish18901962Wrote the textbooks and articles that defined the academic discipline of statistics, inspiring the creation of statistics departments at universities throughout the world. Systematized previous results with informative terminology, substantially improving previous results with mathematical analysis (and claims). Developed the analysis of variance, clarified the method of maximum likelihood (without the uniform priors appearing in some previous versions), invented the concept of sufficient statistics, developed Edgeworth's use of exponential families and information, introducing observed Fisher information, and many theoretical concepts and practical methods, particularly for the design of experiments[16][17][18]
Bonferroni, Carlo EmilioItalian18921960Invented the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons
Wilcoxon, FrankIrish-American18921965Invented two statistical tests: Wilcoxon rank-sum test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test
Neyman, JerzyPolish-American18941981Discovered the confidence interval and co-developed the Neyman–Pearson lemma[19]
Deming, W. EdwardsAmerican19001993Developed methods for statistical quality control[20]
Pearson, EgonEnglish18951980Co-developed the Neyman–Pearson lemma of statistical hypothesis testing[21]
de Finetti, BrunoItalian19061985Pioneer of the "operational subjective" conception of probability. Used this as the basis for exposition of the Bayesian method of statistical analysis. Developed the representation theorem for exchangeable random variables showing that they are the basis of the IID model in statistics.
Kendall, MauriceEnglish19071983Co-developed methods for assessing statistical randomness; invented Kendall tau rank correlation coefficient
Tukey, JohnAmerican19152000Jointly popularized Fast Fourier transformation, pioneer of exploratory data analysis and graphical presentation of data, developed the jackknife for variance estimation, invented the box plot.[22]
Blackwell, DavidAmerican19192010Co-developed Rao-Blackwell theorem and wrote one of the first Bayesian textbooks, Basic Statistics.[23]
Rao, Calyampudi RadhakrishnaIndian1920Co-developed Cramér–Rao bound and Rao–Blackwell theorem, invented MINQUE method of variance component estimation.[24][25]
Cox, DavidEnglish1924Developed the proportional hazards model for the analysis of survival data[26]
Efron, BradleyAmerican1938Invented the bootstrap resampling technique for deriving an empirical distribution of an estimate of a model parameter[27]

Founders of departments of statistics[edit]

The role of a department of statistics is discussed in a 1949 article by Harold Hotelling, which helped to spur the creation of many departments of statistics.[28]

YearCountryUniversityFounderReferences
1911EnglandUniversity College LondonPearson, Karl[7]
1918United StatesDepartment of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public HealthPearl, Raymond[29]
~1931IndiaIndian Statistical InstitutePrasanta Chandra Mahalanobis[30]
~1931United StatesColumbia UniversityHotelling, Harold[31]
1933USAIowa State UniversitySnedecor, George W.[32][33]
1941USANorth Carolina State UniversityCox, Gertrude[34]
1942SwedenUppsala UniversityWold, Herman[35]
1947EnglandUniversity of ManchesterBartlett, M. S.[36][37]
1947USADepartment of Biometry and Statistics, Cornell UniversityFederer, Walter T.[38][39][40]
1948USAStanford University —[41]
1948IndiaUniversity of MumbaiM. C. Chakrabarti[42]
1949USAUniversity of MichiganVelz, Clarence[43]
1949USAUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill —[44]
1949USAUniversity of Chicago —[45]
1949USAVirginia TechHarshbarger, Boyd[46]
1953EnglandCambridge University, Statistics LabWishart, John[47]
1953IndiaUniversity of PuneHuzurbazar, V. S.[48]
1955USAUniversity of California, BerkeleyNeyman, Jerzy[49]
1957USAHarvard UniversityCochran, William G.
Mosteller, Frederick		[50][51]
1957AustraliaUniversity of SydneyLancaster, H.O.[52]
1962USATexas A&M UniversityHartley, Herman Otto[53]
1963USAYale UniversityAnscombe, Francis[54][55]
1964BangladeshInstitute of Statistical Research and TrainingHussain, Q.M.[56]
1965USAPrinceton UniversityTukey, John W.[57][58]
1965USAUniversity of IowaHogg, Robert V.[59]
1966ScotlandUniversity of GlasgowAitchison, John
Silvey, David		[60]
1973USAThe Ohio State UniversityWhitney, D. Ransom[61]
1973GermanyUniversität DortmundEicker, Friedhelm[62]
1979CanadaUniversity of Toronto —[63]
1981IndiaVidyasagar UniversityGain, Anil Kumar[64]
1982Hong KongChinese University of Hong KongTong, Howell[65]
1984IndiaBanaras Hindu UniversitySingh, S.N.
1988EnglandUniversity of OxfordHinkley, D. V.[66]
1994New ZealandThe University of AucklandScott, Alastair
Seber, George
1996USAUniversity of Virginia School of MedicineHarrell, Frank E.[67]

See also[edit]

  • List of statisticians
  • History of statistics
  • Timeline of probability and statistics
  • List of people considered father or mother of a scientific field

References[edit]

  1. ^ Singh, Simon (2000). The code book : the science of secrecy from ancient Egypt to quantum cryptography (1st Anchor Books ed.). New York: Anchor Books. ISBN 978-0-385-49532-5.
  2. ^ Willcox, Walter (1938) The Founder of Statistics. Review of the International Statistical Institute 5(4):321–328.
  3. ^ "Thomas Bayes". Figures from the History of Probability and Statistics. University of Southampton.
  4. ^ "Francis Galton". Figures from the History of Probability and Statistics. University of Southampton.
  5. ^ "Sir Francis Galton F.R.S: 1822–1911".
  6. ^ "Pearson, Karl". Statisticians in History. American Statistical Association.
  7. ^ a b "Karl Pearson (1857 - 1936)". Department of Statistical Science – University College London. Archived from the original on 25 September 2008.
  8. ^ "Karl Pearson". School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews. 2003.
  9. ^ John Aldrich (2008). "Karl Pearson: A Reader's Guide". University of Southampton.
  10. ^ Williams, RH, Zimmerman, DW, Zumbo, BD & Ross, D (2003). "Charles Spearman: British Behavioral Scientist". Human Nature Review. 3: 114–118.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ "William Sealy Gosset". Figures from the History of Probability and Statistics. University of Southampton.
  12. ^ Strecker, Heinrich; Strecker, Rosemarie (2016). "Oskar Anderson". Encyclopedia of Mathematics. Springer-Verlag GmbH, Heidelberg.
  13. ^ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F. (May 2000), "Oskar Johann Viktor Anderson", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
  14. ^ Sheynin, O.B. (1970). "Anderson, Oskar Johann Viktor". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 154–155. ISBN 978-0-684-10114-9.
  15. ^ Jörg Siebels; Kerstin Nees. "Oskar Anderson". Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Famous scholars from Kiel. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  16. ^ "Fisher, R.A." Statisticians in History. American Statistical Association.
  17. ^ "R.A. Fisher". Figures from the History of Probability and Statistics. University of Southampton.
  18. ^ "A Guide to R. A. Fisher".
  19. ^ "Neyman, Jerzy". Statisticians in History. American Statistical Association. Archived from the original on 16 February 2013.
  20. ^ "Deming, W. Edwards". Statisticians in History. American Statistical Association.
  21. ^ "Pearson, Egon S." Statisticians in History. American Statistical Association. Archived from the original on 7 March 2013.
  22. ^ Mccullagh, Peter (2003). "John Wilder Tukey. 16 June 1915 – 26 July 2000" (PDF). Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 49: 537–555. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2003.0032.[permanent dead link]
  23. ^ William Grimes (17 July 2010). "David Blackwell, Scholar of Probability, Dies at 91". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 September 2014. His “Basic Statistics” (1969) was one of the first textbooks on Bayesian statistics, which assess the uncertainty of future outcomes by incorporating new evidence as it arises, rather than relying on historical data. He also wrote numerous papers on multistage decision-making.
  24. ^ Degroot, Morris H. (1987). "A Conversation with C. R. Rao". Statistical Science. 2: 53–67. doi:10.1214/ss/1177013438.
  25. ^ Rao, Calyampudi R. Statisticians in History. American Statistical Association.
  26. ^ Wermuth, Nanny; Anthony C. Davison; Dodge, Yadolah (2005). Celebrating Statistics: Papers in honour of Sir David Cox on his 80th birthday (Oxford Statistical Science Series). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-856654-0. OCLC 185035518.
  27. ^ Casella, George (2003). "Introduction to the Silver Anniversary of the Bootstrap". Statistical Science. 18 (2): 133–134. doi:10.1214/ss/1063994967.
  28. ^ Harold Hotelling (1988). "Golden Oldies: Classic Articles from the World of Statistics and Probability: 'The Place of Statistics in the University'". Statistical Science. 3 (1): 72–83. doi:10.1214/ss/1177013002.
  29. ^ Rohde, C.; Zeger, S.L.; Thomas, K.K.; Bandeen-Roche, K. (2012). Johns Hopkins University Department of Biostatistics. In Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U. S. (Eds. Agresti and Meng). New York: Springer Science+Business Media. pp. 129–141. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-3649-2. ISBN 978-1-4614-3648-5.
  30. ^ Ghosh, JK (1994). "Mahalanobis and the Art and Science of Statistics: The Early Days". Indian Journal of History of Science. 29 (1): 90.
  31. ^ Hotelling, Harold. American Statistical Association Statisticians in History. Archived from the original on 7 March 2013. Retrieved 22 May 2009.
  32. ^ Kempthorne Oscar (1974). "George W. Snedecor". International Statistical Review. 42: 319–321.
  33. ^ David, H. A. (1998). "Statistics in U.S. Universities in 1933 and the establishment of the Statistical Laboratory at Iowa State". Statistical Science. 13: 66–74. doi:10.1214/ss/1028905974.
  34. ^ "Cox, Gertrude M." Statisticians in History. American Statistical Association. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2009.
  35. ^ Herman Wold was appointed Professor of Statistics at Uppsala University in 1942. Already, in 1928, a Swedish Doctor of Philosophy ("Filosofisk Doktorsgrad") was awarded (to P. George Winsler); in 1910, a Professor's Chair in "Statistics" was created[permanent dead link].
  36. ^ This position was the second chair of mathematical statistics in the United Kingdom, but there was no formal Department of Statistics at the University of Manchester.
  37. ^ Whittle, Peter (2004). "Maurice Stevenson Bartlett. 18 June 1910 – 8 January 2002" (PDF). Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 50: 15–33. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2004.0002.[permanent dead link]
  38. ^ "Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology: History". Cornell University.
  39. ^ A. S. Hedayat (2005). "A Conversation with Walter T. Federer". Statistical Science. 20 (3): 302–315. doi:10.1214/088342305000000142.
  40. ^ Susan S. Lang (18 April 2008), Walter T. Federer, father of Cornell's statistics department, dies at 92, Cornell Chronicle
  41. ^ Stephen M. Stigler (1999). "The Foundations of Statistics at Stanford". The American Statistician. 53 (3): 263–266. doi:10.1080/00031305.1999.10474470.
  42. ^ Dixit, Ulhas J.; Satam, Meena R. (1999). Dedicated to MC Chakrabarti, Book (Papers) - Statistical Inference and Design of Experiments. Narosa Publishing House. ISBN 978-81-7319-281-4.
  43. ^ Rohde, C.; Zeger, S.L.; Thomas, K.K.; Bandeen-Roche, K. (2012). University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics. In Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U. S. (Eds. Agresti and Meng). New York: Springer Science+Business Media. pp. 407–417. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-3649-2. ISBN 978-1-4614-3648-5.
  44. ^ "UNC School of Public Health – School history". 2008. Archived from the original on 29 September 2008. Retrieved 27 September 2008.
  45. ^ Stephen M. Stigler. "About the Department of Statistics, University of Chicago".
  46. ^ Arnold, Jesse C (2000). "Virginia tech department of statistics: the first fifty years". Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation. 66 (1): 1–17. doi:10.1080/00949650008812008.
  47. ^ Whittle, Peter (2003). "A Realised Path: The Cambridge Statistical Laboratory".
  48. ^ "1953-1960". University of Pune. Archived from the original on 21 October 2008.
  49. ^ E. L. Lehmann (1996). "The creation and early history of the Berkeley Statistics Department" (pdf). Statistics, probability and game theory. Institute of Mathematical Statistics Lecture Notes – Monograph Series. 30. pp. 139–146. doi:10.1214/lnms/1215453570. ISBN 978-0-940600-42-3.
  50. ^ "Cochran, William G." American Statistical Association Statisticians in History. Archived from the original on 7 March 2013. Retrieved 22 May 2009.
  51. ^ Mosteller, Frederick. American Statistical Association Statisticians in History.
  52. ^ "Obituary: Emeritus Professor Henry Oliver Lancaster, AO FAA". The University of Sydney News. 2002.
  53. ^ History, Department of Statistics. Texas A&M University. Archived from the original on 25 May 2009. Retrieved 2 May 2009.
  54. ^ Wolfgang Saxon (25 October 2001). "Francis John Anscombe, 83, Mathematician and Professor". New York Times.
  55. ^ Barbara (Amato) Kuslan (2002). "The History of the Yale University Department of Statistics 1963–2000".
  56. ^ "ISRT, University of Dhaka: Homepage".
  57. ^ Alexander Leitch (1978). "Statistics". A Princeton Companion. Princeton University Press.
  58. ^ David Leonhardt (28 July 2000). "John Tukey, 85, Statistician; Coined the Word 'Software'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
  59. ^ Randles, Ronald Herman (2007). "A Conversation with Robert V. Hogg". Statistical Science. 22 (1): 137–152. arXiv:0708.3974. Bibcode:2007arXiv0708.3974R. doi:10.1214/088342306000000637.
  60. ^ Department of Statistics Celebrates its 40th Birthday. University of Glasgow. 2006.
  61. ^ "OSU Oral History Interview with D. Ransom Whitney – University Archives".[permanent dead link]
  62. ^ Hering, Franz (1994), Eine Chronik des Fachbereichs Statistik (PDF)
  63. ^ "University of Toronto Department of Statistics: About Us". Archived from the original on 14 September 2009. Retrieved 12 November 2008.
  64. ^ Gain, Anil Kumar. "Founder of the University". Vidyasagar University.
  65. ^ "Vice-Chancellor's Report August 1982-July 1985, p.5".
  66. ^ "Brief History of the Establishment of Statistics at Oxford". Archived from the original on 4 August 2008. Retrieved 24 September 2008.
  67. ^ "Frank E. Harrell Jr., Ph.D. – Vanderbilt Kennedy Center People". Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 22 September 2010.

External links[edit]

  • "Statisticians in History". American Statistical Association.
  • "Life and Work of Statisticians". Department of Mathematics, University of York.
  • "Portraits of Statisticians". Department of Mathematics, University of York.
  • John Aldrich. "Figures from the History of Probability and Statistics". University of Southampton.
  • Lawrence H. Riddle. "Biographies of Women Mathematicians". Agnes Scott College.
  • StatProb – peer-reviewed encyclopedia sponsored by statistics and probability societies