Cedric Smith (statistician)

{{Short description|British statistician and geneticist (1917–2002)}}

{{for|other persons of the same name|Cedric Smith (disambiguation)}}

{{Infobox scientist

| image =

| birth_date = {{birth date |1917|2|5|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Leicester, England

| death_date = {{death date and age |2002|1|10 |1917|2|5|df=yes}}

| death_place =

| fields = Statistics, mathematical genetics

| workplaces = Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge; Galton Laboratory, University College London

| education = University College School, London; Trinity College, Cambridge (PhD 1942)

| known_for = Mathematical methods for mapping genes

}}

Cedric Austen Bardell Smith (5 February 1917 – 10 January 2002) was a British statistician and geneticist. Smith was born in Leicester. He was the younger son of John Bardell Smith (1876–1950), a mechanical engineer, and Ada (née Horrocks; 1876–1969). He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys until 1929, when the family moved to London. His education continued at Bec School, Tooting, for three years, then at University College School, London. In 1935, although having failed his Higher School Certificate, he was awarded an exhibition to Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated in the Mathematical Tripos, with a First in Part II in 1937 and a Distinction in Part III in 1938. Following graduation he began postgraduate research, taking his PhD in 1942.

Work on combinatorics

While a student at Cambridge, Smith became close friends with three other students at Trinity College, Leonard Brooks, Arthur Stone and William Tutte. Together they tackled a number of problems in the mathematical field of combinatorics and devised an imaginary mathematician, Blanche Descartes, under which name to publish their work. The group studied dissections of rectangles into squares, especially the 'perfect' squared square, a square that is divided into a number of smaller squares, no two of which are the same size. Publications under the name of Blanche Descartes {{cite journal

| doi= 10.2307/3610702

| journal = Math. Gaz.

| title = Network-Colourings

|volume = 32|number =299|pages = 67–69

|year = 1948

|first =Blanche| last = Descartes

}}{{cite journal | doi=

|journal = Eureka

|first =Blanche| last = Descartes

|title = Why are series musical?

|volume = 16

|year = 1953

|pages = 29–31

}} or F. de Carteblanche{{cite journal | doi=

|journal = Eureka

|first = F. de| last = Carteblanche

|title = The Coloured Cubes Problem

|volume = 9

|year = 1947

|pages = 9–11

}} continued to appear into the 1980s. The group also published more mainstream articles under their own names, the final one in 1992.{{cite journal

|first1 = R.L.|last1 = Brooks

|first2 = C.A.B. |last2 =Smith

|first3 = A.H.|last3 =Stone

|first4 = W.T. |last4 = Tutte

|journal = Discrete Math.

|volume = 100

| year = 1992

| pages = 291–301

| doi=

|title = Determinants and current flows in electric networks

}}

World War II

During World War II, as a Quaker and conscientious objector, Smith joined the Friends Relief Service; he worked as a hospital porter at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge. Smith's pacifist views saw him develop an interest in peace studies. Among other responsibilities for the Society of Friends, he was a member of the Quaker Peace Studies Trust which established the chair of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. Smith was also a founder member (and Chairman) of the Conflict Research Society.

Post-war career

In 1946 he was appointed Assistant Lecturer at the Galton Laboratory at University College London. He remained at UCL for the rest of his career, becoming successively Lecturer and Reader, before appointment as Weldon Professor of Biometry in 1964. On his arrival at UCL, Smith was influenced by J. B. S. Haldane, who introduced him to problems of linkage in human genetics in which field he was able to bring his skills as a statistician to bear. He invented some of the mathematical methods used to map human genes.{{cite web|url=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/gee/about/famous-members

|title=Former Members|accessdate=19 April 2012|publisher=University College London}} In 1955, he invented the "gene counting" method of inferring gene frequencies from the frequencies of genotypes in populations.{{cite journal

| last1 = Ceppelini | first1 = R. M.

| last2 = Siniscalco | first2 = M.

| last3 = Smith | first3 = C.A.B. | title = The estimation of gene frequencies in a random-mating population | journal = Annals of Human Genetics | volume = 20 | pages = 97–115 | date = 1955 | issue = 2 | doi = 10.1111/j.1469-1809.1955.tb01360.x | pmid = 13268982 | s2cid = 38625779 }} This was an early example of the EM Algorithm, over 20 years before its introduction by Dempster and co-workers.{{cite journal

|last1=Dempster |first1= A.P.

|last2=Laird |first2=N.M.

|last3=Rubin|first3=D.B.

|title=Maximum Likelihood from Incomplete Data via the EM Algorithm

|journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B

|year=1977 |volume=39 |issue=1 |pages=1–38

|jstor=2984875 |mr= 0501537

}} He gave a more general discussion of the gene-counting method and its statistical properties in 1957.{{cite journal | author-link = C.A.B. Smith | last = Smith | first = C.A.B. | title = Counting methods in genetical statistics | journal = Annals of Human Genetics | volume = 21 | pages = 254–276 | date = 1957 | issue = 3 | doi=10.1111/j.1469-1809.1972.tb00287.x| pmid = 13411871 | s2cid = 84484349 }}

Smith was elected a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1945. He was a member of the Genetical Society (serving as Treasurer), the International Biometric Society (British Region), serving as President 1971–1972, and the International Statistical Institute.

Other interests

He was a member of the advisory committee to the Anti-Concorde Project.

Family

In 1957 he married Piroska Vermes (1921–2000), known as 'Piri'. They had one son, who survived them."Cedric Smith" (obituary), The Times, 21 February 2002. Piri's father, Dr. Paul Vermes (1897–1968), was a Hungarian refugee who became a professional mathematician at the age of 50.

References

The Detection of Linkage in Human Genetics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series B (Methodological), Vol. 15, No. 2. (1953), pp. 153–192.

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070208204346/http://www.newton.cam.ac.uk/Abstracts/thompson2.html E. Thompson: "1953 An unrecognized summit in human genetic linkage analysis"] (abstract)
[https://arxiv.org/abs/0709.3765 E. Thompson: "1953 An unrecognized summit in human genetic linkage analysis"] (paper)
[https://archive.today/20121223170129/http://archives.ucl.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=((RefNo='MS')AND(RefNo='ADD')AND(RefNo='426')) Catalogue of the Smith papers held at UCL Archives]

Category:1917 births

Category:2002 deaths

Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

Category:Modern synthesis (20th century)

Category:People from Leicester

Category:British conscientious objectors

Category:British biostatisticians

Category:English geneticists

Category:English statisticians

Category:20th-century English mathematicians

Category:Academics of University College London

Category:People educated at University College School