Twelve British Statisticians

Book excerpt: Twelve British Statisticians provides a description of the lives and contributions of a dozen scientific luminaries. Their fields of expertise sometimes include disciplines that depart from statistics and display great versatility. Each statistician is a famous figure, but is especially renowned in Great Britain. The book is accessible to a wide reading audience. Each chapter focuses on the scientific contributions and personal life of a single statistician. Each chapter begins with an overview and contains a rich set of references. Current textbooks in statistics contain little information about the pioneers in the field. This book provides a historical supplement in courses on quantitative methods in the behavioral, social, and biological disciplines. The statisticians and some of their contributions covered include: 1. Karl Pearson: product-moment correlation. 2. R.A. Fisher: analysis of variance and covariance, experimental design, common sampling distributions. 3. Charles Spearman: factor analysis, theory of intelligence, mental test theory. 4. Florence Nightingale David: advocate of womenOCOs vocational rights in statistics, distinguished educator. 5. George Udny Yule: time series, contingency table analysis. 6. Maurice G. Kendall: generation of and tests for randomness, time series. 7. George E.P. Box: statistical quality control, analysis of time series. 8. William Sealy Gosset (OC StudentOCO): small sample statistical techniques, contributions to Neyman-Pearson theory. 9. Egon Sharpe Pearson: Neyman-Pearson theory, history of statistics. 10. Francis Ysidro Edgeworth: polymath mathematical psychics, editor of the Economics Journal . 11. Maurice S. Bartlett: stochastic processes, epidemiology, time series. 12. David Cox: multivariable models including covariates and treatment variables, survival rate. For author bios, photos, and a sample read, visit www.bosonbooks.com"