William S Gosset (1876-1937)

PERSONAL

• Born in Canterbury, England to Agnes Sealy Vidal and Colonel

Frederic Gosset.
• Attended Winchester College before reading chemistry and
mathematics at New College, Oxford. On graduating in 1899, he
joined the Dublin brewery of Arthur Guinness & Son.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• The application of the law of error to the work of the Brewery (1904,
nota interna presso Guinness)
• "On the error of counting with haemacytometer". February 1907.
• "The probable error of a mean". March 1908. "Probable error of a
correlation coefficient". September 1908.
• "The distribution of the means of samples which are not drawn at
random". July–October
• "An experimental determination of the probable error of Dr
Spearman's correlation coefficients". July 1921.

• "Review of Statistical Methods for Research Workers (R. A. Fisher)".

"On Student’s 1908 Article “The Probable Error of a
Mean”(S.L.Zabell)". Journal of the American Statistical Association
Vol. 103, No. 481: 1–7. March 2008. ‘Student’s’ Collected Papers
He earned a degree in chemistry at Oxford, and joined the Guinness
brewery firm in 1899. His work for Guinness led him investigate the
statistical validity of results obtained from small samples (previous
statistical theory had concentrated instead on large samples). His
publications in Pearson's journal Biometrika were signed "Student," in
deference to Guinness company policy forbidding publication by
employees. His most important result was known as the "Student's t" test or
distribution, published in 1908. His work founded the concept of quality
control. He was the pioneer of small sample analysis inventing "Student’s
t," C4, and the "F" test.

The author considers him to be the greatest statistician that ever lived. He
inspired both Karl Pearson and Ronald Fisher to develop small sample
methods. Moreover among these three peers he was the nice friendly
person, the other two being outspoken and arrogant. He was a
communication link between these two arch enemies and further,
befriended Egon Pearson, Karl Pearson’s son, and Jerzy Neyman When
Gosset died unexpectedly in 1937, among the group, his loss was felt most
keenly by the Egon Pearson, who remarked perceptively:
"I think that there are so very many things that we owe to 'Student' in the
present statistical world. I would like to interest people in him, his practical
mindedness and his simplicity of approach. It would be so easy for people
to miss in the picture that large part he played simply by being in touch, by
correspondence or personal meetings, with all the mathematical
statisticians of his day." [From "Acquiring Statistics" by E Bruce Brooks]

Egon devoted much of his later life to writing the book "Student" about
Gosset and his relationship with Fisher and Karl Pearson. Gosset became
world famous as a statistician but never gave up his pursuit of better beer.
Another of his peers was Florence Nightingale David* who was also a
statistician. She said of the group: "I saw the lot of them. Went fly fishing
with Gosset. A nice man. Went to Fisher's seminars with Cochran and that
gang. Endured K P. Spent three years with Neyman. Then I was on Egon
Pearson's faculty for year."

Ronald Fisher considered Gossett to be his best friend. Fisher wrote in

Gossett’s obituary:

"Student’s work has shown that a better course is open to us than that of
adopting even the best available estimate of the variance of the population;
that, by finding the exact sampling distribution of such an estimate, we may
make allowance for its sampling errors, so as to obtain a test of
significance which, in spite of these errors, is exact and rigorous.
He thus rendered obsolete the restriction that the sample must be
"sufficiently large", a restriction vaguely adumbrated by some previous
writers, and ignored by others. The claim that "Student’s" result is rigorous
and exact has, of course, been resented by advocates of "large sample"
methods."

And further:

One immense advantage which "Student" possessed was his concern with,
and responsibility for, the practical interpretation of experimental data. If
more mathematicians shared this advantage there can be no doubt that
mathematical research would be more fruitfully directed than it often is.

Florence Nightingale David was named after Florence Nightingale who

raised nursing to a profession and was also a famous statistician. She
invented the pie chart for example. When she tired of arguing with the
English Generals for better field hospitals and antiseptic methods, she
would take a holiday in the country. She stayed with the Davis family and
they named their daughter after her. F. N. David became a famous
statistician.
Jerzy Neyman (1894-1981)

PERSONAL

• born Jerzy Spława-Neyman, was a Polish-American mathematician

and statistician who spent most of his professional career at the
University of California, Berkeley.
• He was born into a Polish family in Bendery, Bessarabia in Imperial
Russia, the fourth of four children of Czesław Spława-Neyman and
Kazimiera Lutosławska. His family was Roman Catholic and Neyman
served as an altar boy during his early childhood.

He is considered to be one of great founders of modern statistics. He made

large contributions in probability theory, testing hypothesis, confidence
intervals, generalized chi-square, and other areas of mathematical
statistics. He was born Jerzy Neyman in Bendery, Russia. Neyman was
forced to move to Poland due to the war between Poland and Russia.
Neyman was 27 at the time. In Poland, Neyman worked with W. Sierpinski
before moving to London in 1924. Neyman studied under Karl Pearson
while in London. He also made contacts with Egon Pearson, R. A. Fisher,
and W. S. Gosset while at University College. By 1934, Karl Pearson had
retired and his department was divided between his son Egon and Fisher.
Egon invited Neyman to work with him.
They worked on the theory of testing hypotheses. They supplied logical
foundation and mathematical rigor to the theory that was missing in
previous methodology. Their work was disputed by some mathematicians,
including Fisher. The Neyman-Pearson ideas eventually spread throughout
mathematics. Their ideas made sure that samples were large enough to
avoid false representation.

The theory of estimation by confidence sets was Neyman’s next topic of

choice. He used confidence intervals to guarantee that the probability of
covering the true value of the parameter to be estimated was at least equal
to a preassigned value called the confidence coefficient. His uses soon
appeared in many textbooks and works on statistical methodology.

In 1937 Neyman accepted a position at the University of California-

Berkeley. He was asked to start a statistics department at Berkeley. Many
people question his decision, but Neyman took the position because he
was fearful of Hitler and the start of World War II. It was at Berkeley, were
he spent half of his life, that he came up with his BAN (best asymptotically
normal) estimation theory. The BAN estimates now widely used in a
manner similar to the use of least squares.
 APPENDIX

Jerzy Neyman

April 16, 1894

Born Bendery, Bessarabia,
Imperial Russia

August 5, 1981 (aged 87)

Died
William S Gosset Oakland, California

Born June 13, 1876 Nationality Polish

Canterbury, Kent, England Known for confidence interval
October 16, 1937 (aged 61)Notable
Guy Medal
Died Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire,
awards
England
INTRODUCTION

A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics.

The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of
that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human
activity patterns within it. The field shares much common history with
positivist social science, but often with a greater emphasis on advanced
mathematical methods.
It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other
subjects. The applications are varied. Statisticians apply their knowledge to
production, research, finance, medicine, the built and natural environments,
insurance and government. They often are employed to support managerial
decisions or to supervise quality control in manufacturing. Here we are
discussing two of the well known and famous statisticians in terms of their
personality, contribution and achievements.

CONCLUSIONS

Civilizations have used the work of statisticians for thousands of years.

Statistics was employed in ancient Egypt in censuses of population and
cattle. Typical work might involve developing a model and sampling plans,
analyzing survey results, or contributing to agricultural or econometric
forecasts.
Statistics is the formal science of making effective use of numerical data
relating to groups of individuals or experiments. It deals with all aspects of
this, including not only the collection, analysis and interpretation of such
data, but also the planning of the collection of data, in terms of the design
of surveys and experiments.

A statistician is someone who is particularly well versed in the ways of

thinking necessary for the successful application of statistical analysis.
Often such people have gained this experience after starting work in any of
a number of fields. There is also a discipline called mathematical statistics,
which is concerned with the theoretical basis of the subject.

RERERENCES

www.bobabernathy.com/williamgosset

www.wikipedia.com

www.google.com/mybooks

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Neyman.html

http://www.bookrags.com/wiki/Jerzy_Neyman
Biostatistics

SMT 1063
 ASSIGNMENT II (INDIVIDUAL)

TITLE: STATISTICIANS

Name: Megalan Raj S.Anbazagan

Id: 012008110329
Program: BBM
Semester: 4
Date: July 24 2010
Lecturer: Mr.Ismet Hamid
Content
Introduction

What is statistic?

Statistician’s History

Bibliography of personal leader.

(a) personality
(b) achievement
(c) contribution
(d) personal character
• William S Gosset

• Jerzy Neyman

. Conclusion

References