William Sealey Gosset Born: 13 June 1876 in Canterbury, England Died: 16 Oct 1937 in Beaconsfield, England Click the picture above to see two larger pictures Show birthplace location Previous (Chronologically) Next Biographies Index Previous (Alphabetically) Next Main index William Gosset was educated at Winchester, then entering New College Oxford where he studied chemistry and mathematics. While there he studied under Airy Gosset obtained a post as a chemist in the Guinness brewery in Dublin in 1899 and did important work on statistics. He invented the t-test to handle small samples for quality control in brewing. He wrote under the name "Student". Gosset discovered the form of the t distribution by a combination of mathematical and empirical work with random numbers, an early application of the Monte-Carlo method. Writing in [7], McMullen says:- To many in the statistical world "Student" was regarded as a statistical advisor to Guinness's brewery, to others he appeared to be a brewer devoting his spare time to statistics. ... though there is some truth in both these ideas they miss the central point, which was the intimate connection between his statistical research and the practical problems on which he was engaged. ... "Student" did a very large quantity of ordinary routine as well as his statistical work in the brewery, and all tat in addition to consultative statistical work and to preparing his various published papers. From 1922 he got a statistical assistant at the brewery, and he slowly built up a small statistics department which he ran until 1934. | |
|