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Egon Pearson
Times obituary
D.E.B. writes:
Professor Egon Sharpe Pearson, CBE, MA, DSC, FRS, who died on June 12 at the age of 84, was the doyen of British statisticians.
His father, Karl Pearson, founded modern statistics, and Egon succeeded him as head of the Statistics Department at University College London in 1934. When he retired 30 years later, the two Pearsons (locally known as KP and ESP) had led the department for two-thirds of the century. During its first half, the departure was unique. The fact that today there is a department of statistics in most British and American universities is one measure of the contribution made by father and son to the advancement of knowledge.
On his retirement in 1966 from the editorship of Biometrika, ESP had published 112 learned papers. This in itself is an inadequate measure of his influence. He will be chiefly remembered by statisticians for his theory of testing statistical hypotheses, worked out in collaboration with Jerzy Neyman and now known as the Neyman-Pearson theory. In retrospect, it is recognizable that it should have taken 150 years to resolve a central obscurity in statistics. This obscurity had been evident since Laplace differed from Daniel Bernoulli on the statistical analysis of the inclinations of planetary orbits. It is due to ESP that we now understand the question. Although he would surely have wished this proposition to be qualified by his statement: "There are moments in the history of a Science when the time is ripe ..." Student's and R. A. Fisher's work drew more than one statistician into examining the philosophy of choice among statistical techniques," the fact re-mains that the problem had been squarely on the board since Laplace's memoir of 1776.
ESP remained intellectually active to the end of his life. Of recent years, his historical studies on the formative stages of statistics early in this century have made a significant addition to the history of ideas. His death has grievously stopped these studies in mid-flow.
To one who (as an undergraduate) first attended his evening lectures in 1946 (when he returned to University College after six years of war work with the British Ordnance Board) and who subsequently joined his staff, he was always an august, respected, and indeed Edwardian, figure. It was only after many years as a junior colleague that one came to a fuller appreciation of his personal qualities. These were consonant with those so much as it evidences in his published work: namely, clarity, combined with a studied simplicity, considered judgment and restraint, never pursuing conclusions further than the evidence warranted. These cardinal virtues in a statistician were not only a model to his students: they set the tone in a department where high standards were commanded by example. Those of us who were fortunate enough to work there will remain forever grateful for the ideal environment this provided for constructive thinking.
D.E.B. writes:
Professor Egon Sharpe Pearson, CBE, MA, DSC, FRS, who died on June 12 at the age of 84, was the doyen of British statisticians.
His father, Karl Pearson, founded modern statistics, and Egon succeeded him as head of the Statistics Department at University College London in 1934. When he retired 30 years later, the two Pearsons (locally known as KP and ESP) had led the department for two-thirds of the century. During its first half, the departure was unique. The fact that today there is a department of statistics in most British and American universities is one measure of the contribution made by father and son to the advancement of knowledge.
On his retirement in 1966 from the editorship of Biometrika, ESP had published 112 learned papers. This in itself is an inadequate measure of his influence. He will be chiefly remembered by statisticians for his theory of testing statistical hypotheses, worked out in collaboration with Jerzy Neyman and now known as the Neyman-Pearson theory. In retrospect, it is recognizable that it should have taken 150 years to resolve a central obscurity in statistics. This obscurity had been evident since Laplace differed from Daniel Bernoulli on the statistical analysis of the inclinations of planetary orbits. It is due to ESP that we now understand the question. Although he would surely have wished this proposition to be qualified by his statement: "There are moments in the history of a Science when the time is ripe ..." Student's and R. A. Fisher's work drew more than one statistician into examining the philosophy of choice among statistical techniques," the fact re-mains that the problem had been squarely on the board since Laplace's memoir of 1776.
ESP remained intellectually active to the end of his life. Of recent years, his historical studies on the formative stages of statistics early in this century have made a significant addition to the history of ideas. His death has grievously stopped these studies in mid-flow.
To one who (as an undergraduate) first attended his evening lectures in 1946 (when he returned to University College after six years of war work with the British Ordnance Board) and who subsequently joined his staff, he was always an august, respected, and indeed Edwardian, figure. It was only after many years as a junior colleague that one came to a fuller appreciation of his personal qualities. These were consonant with those so much as it evidences in his published work: namely, clarity, combined with a studied simplicity, considered judgment and restraint, never pursuing conclusions further than the evidence warranted. These cardinal virtues in a statistician were not only a model to his students: they set the tone in a department where high standards were commanded by example. Those of us who were fortunate enough to work there will remain forever grateful for the ideal environment this provided for constructive thinking.
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