HISTORY OF STATISTICS AND

CONTRIBUTIONS TO PRESENT DAY

MATHEMATICS
BEGINNING OF STATISTICS
Mahabharata; Vana Prarva; Nala –
Damyanti Akhyan
 Nala and king Bhangasuri were moving in a chariot through a forest.
Bhangasuri told Nala that if he can count how many fallen leaves
and fruits are there, he (Bhangasuri) can tell the number of fruits and
leaves on two strongest branches of Vibhitak tree. One above one
hundred are the number of leaves and one fruit informed Nala after
counting the fallen leaves and fruit. Bhangasuri avers 2095 fruits and
five ten million leaves on the two strongest branches of the tree
(actually it is 5 koti leaves and 1 koti is 10 million). Nala counts all
night and is duly amazed by morning. Bhangasuri accepts his due "I
of dice possess the science—and in numbers thus am skilled." said
Bhangasuri. Vahuca replied; "That science—if to me thou wilt
impart, In return, O king, receive thou—my surpassing skill in steeds."
This indeed is a strong application of survey sampling.
 Ancient Rome and China(4500 – 3000
BCE)

Babylonians and Egyptians carried

censuses; censuses of agriculture. A
population census conducted in ancient
China; determine the revenue and
military strength of its provinces. Census
of people and registration of property
was conducted in ancient Rome.
Roman Emperor Augustus (27 BCE – 17
CE)

Roman Emperor Augustus conducted

surveys on births and deaths of the
citizens of the empire as well as the
amount of livestock each owned and
the crops each harvested. Romans also
developed methods of collecting,
organizing, and summarizing data.
 Middle ages

Censuses of population, household

goods and land were conducted.
 Fourteenth Century CE

People began keeping

records on births, deaths and
accidents in order to
determine insurance rates.
 STATISTICS
GREATEST
CONTRIBUTORS
 JOHN GRAUNT

Established the first English

school of political arithmetic, a
scientific school much closer to
the modern understanding of
Statistics. Karl Pearson
considered Graunt as ―father of
the modern Statistics.‖
 WILLIAM PETTY

English economist, scientist, a Professor

of Music and philosopher studied
anatomy, medicine. He suggested
efficient methods to survey the land
that was to be confiscated and given
to Cromwell's soldiers. He is best
remembered for his contribution in
economics and political arithmetic.
 THOMAS BAYES

Is well known for the Theorem

called Bayes' Theorem. Bayes
never published what would
eventually become his most
famous accomplishment; his
notes were edited and published
after his death by Richard Price.
 GOTTFRIED ACHENWALL

A German philosopher and

statistician. He is considered among
the inventors of the term ―statistics‖.
He first began to read a new course
"statistics" in the University of
Göttingen, which explained how the
state was arranged.
 BLAISE PASCAL

Famous mathematician who helped

create two major new areas of research:
projective geometry and probability
theory. He wrote a significant treatise on
projective geometry at the age of 16,
and later corresponded with Pierre de
Fermat on probability theory which
strongly influenced the development of
modern economics and social science.
 PIERRE DE FERMAT

He along with Pascal,

founded the theories of
probability. The mathematical
theory of probability has its
roots through games of
chance and gambling.
 DANIEL BERNOULLI
Was a Swiss mathematician and
physicist and was one of the famous
mathematicians in the Bernoulli
family. The Bernoulli principle is
credited to him. The principle
describes the mathematics of the
mechanism underlying the operation
of two important technologies the
carburetor and the airplane wing
 PIERRE-SIMON LAPLACE

Laplace established fundamentals

of statistics in the book théorie
analytique des probabilités. The
treatise discussed probability
methods and problems and
statistical methods and applications,
normal curve, regression through
study of astronomy.
 CARL FREIDRICH GAUSS

In the area of probability and statistics, Gauss

introduced which is now known as Gaussian
distribution, the Gaussian function and the
Gaussian error curve. To represent probability,
he introduced a bell-shaped or ―normal‖ curve
which peaks around the mean value and
quickly falls off towards plus/minus infinity.
Gauss-Markov theorem is another major
contribution by Gauss.
 ADOLPHE QUETELET
Adolphe Quetelet was a Belgian astronomer,
mathematician, statistician and sociologist. At that time,
the science of probability and statistics was mainly
applied in astronomy. Realizing the complexity of social
phenomena, Quetelet pioneered in applying the
statistical principles in social science. He wanted to
understand how other social factors influenced th values
of various social phenomena such as crime rates,
marriage rates or suicide rates. These ideas did not well
went with other scientists at the time who considered
these theories as a contradiction to the concept of
freedom of choice.
 FRANCIS GALTON

Galton studied genetic

variation in humans through
regression and correlation.
 KARL PEARSON
Considered to be the father of
modern statistics which emerged
from his seminal work in
mathematical biology and
biometry. He has laid foundation
to the discipline of mathematical
statistics.
CHARLES EDWARD SPEARMAN

He pioneered the idea of factor

analysis and Spearman's rank
correlation coefficient. In
statistics, Spearman developed
rank correlation (1904) is a non-
parametric version of the
Pearson correlation.
 WESLEY CLAIR MITCHELL

Wesley Clair Mitchell is well

known for his empirical work
on business cycles and for
guiding the National Bureau of
Economic Research in its first
decades
 WILLIAM SEALY GOSSET (known under
the pseudonym Student)
An English statistician published under the
pen name Student, and developed the
Student's t-distribution. Studentized
residuals are named in Student's honour
because, like the problem that led to
Student's t-distribution, the idea of
adjusting for estimated standard
deviations is central to that concept.
 KIRSTINE SMITH

Smith developed minimum chi-

squared estimation of the
correlation coefficient. She initiated
research on optimal design theory
where she computed G-optimal
designs for polynomial regression of
order up to 6, and explicitly
obtained some of these designs.
 RONALD A. FISHER
Was an English mathematician, geneticist, statistician,
evolutionary biologist and eugenicist. His breeding
experiments conducted at Rothamsted Experimental
Station led to the theories of gene dominance and fitness
and selection. The problem of biased selection in plant
breeding experiments led him to introduce the principle
of randomization. He made fundamental contributions to
the mathematical theory of statistics and laid foundations
of experimental design, analysis of variance, statistical
inference.
 HAROLD JEFFREYS

Was an English mathematician,

statistician, geophysicist, and
astronomer. He published his
book Theory of Probability in 1939.
The book revived the Bayesian
view of probability
 P C MAHALANOBIS

He made pioneering studies in

anthropometry in India and
contributed to the design of large-
scale sample surveys. He is founder of
Indian Statistical Institute.
 JERZY NEYMAN
 Was a Polish mathematician and statistician. He
first introduced the concept of a confidence
interval into statistical hypothesis testing and in
collaboration with Egon Pearson, he co-devised
null hypothesis testing and presented
NeymanPearson lemma, the basis of hypothesis
testing. The method of Stratified Sampling and the
Method of Purposive Selection", given at the Royal
Statistical Society on 19 June 1934, was the
groundbreaking event leading to modern
scientific sampling
 ABRAHAM WALD

Was an Austrian mathematician who

contributed to geometry, economics,
econometrics and seasonal
movements in time series. He
pioneered the concept of statistical
sequential analysis.
 J. WOLFOWITZ

Wolfowitz's main contributions

were in the fields of statistical
decision theory, nonparametric
statistics, sequential analysis, and
information theory.
 W. ALLEN WALLIS

Wilson Allen Wallis was an American

economist and statistician. He was
president of the University of
Rochester. He along with William
Kruskal presented the Kruskal– Wallis
one-way analysis of variance
 JOHN TUKEY

John Wilder Tukey has made

numerous contributions in the field of
statistics. He was an American
mathematician best remembered for
development of the FFT algorithm
and box plot
 JACK CARL KIEFER

Kiefer is one of the pioneer in

optimal experimental design
theory. The american statistician
obituary calls him "undoubtedly
the foremost worker in optimal
experimental design"
 BRADLEY EFRON

Bradley Efron is known for

introducing the bootstrap
resampling technique. The
bootstrap technique has made a
significant impact in the field of
applied statistics.
 WHY STATISTICS IS IMPORTANT IN OUR
LIFE?
 Statistics are the sets of mathematical equations that we
used to analyze the things. It keeps us informed about,
what is happening in the world around us. Statistics are
important because today we live in the information
world and much of this information’s are determined
mathematically by Statistics Help. It means to be
informed correct data and statics concepts are
necessary.
PREPARED BY :

MA. LYN FERNANDEZ

DARRY J. PORTES