Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-l] Mosteller In Memoriam



Frederick Mosteller, 89, preeminent statistician and founding chairman of Harvard University's statistics department who popularized the application of statistical data to fields from politics to sports; in Falls Church Va. has died.

Mosteller first showed his knack for the laws of probability as a teenager, while working on a road crew that played poker during rain delays.
1n1952, after mulling over the St. Louis Cardinals' 1946 Wor1d Series win over the
Boston Redsox, he published the first known academic paper on baseball statistics.

A stronger team on paper would often lose to a weaker team, he proved, simply because of chance. Other problems he tackled: in warfare, how strings of bombs would fall; why pollsters erred in calling the 1948 election for Dewey over Truman; and the authorship of the Federalist Papers, by analyzing word frequency. A droll defender of his field he once wrote, "It is easy to lie with statistics, but easier to lie without them.''

[From the Time notice, Aug 7th.]


Brian Whatcott Altus OK Eureka!