Customer Reviews

Statisticians of the Centuries

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful collection of biographies of the world's leading probabilists and statisticians beginning with Cardano (1501-1576) and ending with Deming (1900-1993). Along the way we learn about the lives and contributions of 103 individuals by 75 experts in the field. For professional statisticians like myself it is interesting to learn about the lives of so many of the famous statisticians whose work we are very familiar with. Included among those that are very well-known are R. A. Fisher, W. S, Gosset (Student), W. E. Deming, W. Shewhart, H. Cramer, H. Hotelling, E. S. Pearson, K. Pearson, G. Cox, F. Wilcoxon, E. Gumbel, A. A. Markov, F. Galton, J. Neyman, G. W. Snedecor, P. C. Mahalanobis, J. W. Lindeberg, C. E. Bonferroni, C. E. Gauss, P. L. Chebyshev, F. Y. Edgeworth, G. Snedecor, R. von Mises, T. Bayes and more. But even more interesting to me are the many names that I had never heard of and was curious to read about including, F. A. Shcherbina, G. H. Knibbs. A. L. Bowley, H. E. Hurst, P. D. En'ko, G. von Mayr, and J. P. Sussmilch. This book is fun to read. Each statistician has a picture or portrait included and there is lots to learn about the men and women and the profession. With any list there are always some that you wonder how they could be excluded. For me, W. Feller and A. Wald are glaring omissions. None of my favorite contemporaries are there but this is probably because the list is restricted to those who are deceased.

This is a tremendously useful and very well written book.
The articles are written by people who are really expert on each reviewed statistician and in some cases have actually worked with them.
The style is crystal clear, engaging, very often rivetting, accessible to the general public, and covers the broad aspect of the life, the work and also the social/political context of each statistician and their links to others.
Each article is just the perfect length: very well synthetised. You are left with a very good idea of each statistician without having lost too much time. High reward per time spent.
This is the book I always first consult when I encounter the name of a statistician I am not familiar.
HIGHLY recommended.