The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900

By Stephen M. Stigler

Book Overview

Revised

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067440341X
• ISBN13: 9780674403413
• Release Date: March 1990
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

great perspective on a key period in the development of statistical science

Stigler is unrivaled as a statistician who researches the history of statistics. This covers the famous mathematicians and statisticians who developed the foundation on which probability and statistics blossomed in the 20th Century. He is thorough and accurate and his writing is always clear and interesting. After reading this try Salsburg's "Lady Tasting Tea" to see how Fisher, Cramer, Neyman and Pearson and Kolmogorov and others formally developed probabilty and mathematical statistics as important disciplines in the 20th Century. Always enjoyable and enlightening, Stigler brings an unparalleled degree of scholarship to the essays.

Great background for students

I love history of mathematics books like this one that have the guts to delve into the actual mathematics involved while retaining a narrative thread. I use it with my children to illustrate why mathematics is important. What problems were people trying to solve? How solutions were arrived at in steps over time rather than as deus ex machina. This is much more effective than presenting mathematics as most schools, out of context as a series of recipes. The book is divided into three main parts: The Development of Mathematical Statistics in Astronomy and Geodesy before 1827 The Struggle to Extend a Calculus of Probabilities to the Social Sciences A Breakthorugh in Studies of Heredity

typical authoritative work of Stigler

Stigler is unrivaled as a statistician who researches the history of statistics. This covers the famous mathematicians and statisticians who developed the foundation on which probability and statistics blossomed in the 20th Century. He is thorough and accurate and his writing is always clear and interesting. After reading this try Salsburg's "Lady Tasting Tea" to see how Fisher, Cramer, Neyman and Pearson and Kolmogorov and others formally developed probabilty and mathematical statistics as important disciplines in the 20th Century.

The difinitive work on the development of ststistics

This book is THE definitive work on the early development of statistics. Obviously written by a man in love with his subject. Bernoulli, de Moivre, Bayes, Laplace, Gauss, Quetelet, Lexis, Galton, Edgeworth and Pearson all but come alive. I particularly enjoyed the reproductions of first sources included that you would otherwise have to travel to Paris to see.