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George E. P. Box

{{short description|British statistician}}

{{for|the ice hockey player|George Box (ice hockey)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}

{{Use British English|date=June 2013}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = George Box

| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRS}}|

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| image = GeorgeEPBox.jpg

| image_size = 200px

| birth_date = {{birth date|1919|10|18|df=y}}

| birth_place = Gravesend, Kent, England

| death_date = {{death date and age|2013|3|28|1919|10|18|df=y}}

| death_place = Madison, Wisconsin

| citizenship =

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| field = Statistics

| work_institutions = {{Plainlist|

| alma_mater = University College London

| doctoral_advisor = {{Plainlist|

| thesis_title = Departures from Independence and Homoskedasticity in the Analysis of Variance and Related Statistical Analysis

| thesis_year = 1953

| doctoral_students = John F. MacGregor
Greta M. Ljung

| known_for = {{Plainlist|

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| prizes = {{Plainlist|

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George Edward Pelham Box {{postnominals|country=GBR|FRS}} (18 October 1919 – 28 March 2013) was a British statistician, who worked in the areas of quality control, time-series analysis, design of experiments, and Bayesian inference. He has been called "one of the great statistical minds of the 20th century". He is famous for the quote "All models are wrong but some are useful".Julian Champkin, "[http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/4566511/George-Box-1919-2013-a-wit-a-kind-man-and-a-statistician.html George Box, (1919-2013): a wit, a kind man and a statistician] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140815231232/http://www.significancemagazine.org/details/webexclusive/4566511/George-Box-1919-2013-a-wit-a-kind-man-and-a-statistician.html |date=15 August 2014 }}", Significance.{{Cite journal | author = Morris H. DeGroot | title = A Conversation with George Box | journal = Statistical Science | volume = 2 | issue = 3 |date=August 1987 | pages = 239–258 | doi = 10.1214/ss/1177013223 | jstor=2245757 | doi-access = free }}{{Cite journal | author = Daniel Peña | title = George Box: An interview with the International Journal of Forecasting | journal = International Journal of Forecasting | volume = 17 | year = 2001 | pages = 1–9 | doi = 10.1016/S0169-2070(00)00061-3| citeseerx = 10.1.1.200.5272 | url = https://robjhyndman.com/files/Boxinterview.pdf }}{{cite web | url = http://aperiodical.com/2013/04/george-e-p-box-1919-2013/ | author = Colin Beveridge | date = 5 April 2013 | title = George E. P. Box (1919-2013) | publisher = The Aperiodical}}

Education and early life

He was born in Gravesend, Kent, England. Upon entering university he began to study chemistry, but was called up for service before finishing. During World War II, he performed experiments for the British Army exposing small animals to poison gas. To analyze the results of his experiments, he taught himself statistics from available texts. After the war, he enrolled at University College London and obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics and statistics. He received a PhD from the University of London in 1953, under the supervision of Egon Pearson and HO Hartley.{{MacTutor|id=Box}}

Career and research

From 1948 to 1956, Box worked as a statistician for Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). While at ICI, he took a leave of absence for a year and served as a visiting professor at North Carolina State University at Raleigh. He later went to Princeton University where he served as Director of the Statistical Research Group.

In 1960, Box moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison to create the Department of Statistics. In 1980, he was named Vilas Research Professor of Statistics, which is the highest honor given to a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty.{{cite journal |last1=DeGroot |first1=Morris H. |title=A Conversation with George Box |journal=Statistical Science |date=1 August 1987 |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=239–258 |doi=10.1214/ss/1177013223 |jstor=2245757|doi-access=free }} Box and Bill Hunter co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1985.{{cite journal |last1=Hunter |first1=J. Stuart |title=In Memoriam: George E. P. Box |journal=Technometrics |date=May 2013 |volume=55 |issue=2 |pages=119–120 |doi=10.1080/00401706.2013.799372|s2cid=205459356 }} Box officially retired in 1992, becoming an emeritus professor.{{cite book |last1=Box |first1=George |title=A Very British Affair |date=2013 |pages=161–215 |doi=10.1057/9781137291264_6 |chapter=Box and Jenkins: Time Series Analysis, Forecasting and Control |isbn=9780230348189 |editor-first=Terence C. |editor-last=Mills }}

Box published books including Statistics for Experimenters (2nd ed., 2005), Time Series Analysis: Forecasting and Control (4th ed., 2008, with Gwilym Jenkins and Gregory C. Reinsel) and Bayesian Inference in Statistical Analysis. (1973, with George Tiao).

Awards and honours

Box served as president of the American Statistical Association in 1978 and of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 1979. He received the Shewhart Medal from the American Society for Quality Control in 1968, the Wilks Memorial Award from the American Statistical Association in 1972, the R. A. Fisher Lectureship in 1974, and the Guy Medal in Gold from the Royal Statistical Society in 1993. Box was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1985.

His name is associated with results in statistics such as Box–Jenkins models, Box–Cox transformations, Box–Behnken designs, and others. Additionally, Box famously wrote, in various books and papers, that "all models are wrong, but some are useful".{{Citation | first= G. E. P. | last= Box | year=1976 | title= Science and Statistics | journal= Journal of the American Statistical Association | volume= 71 | issue= 356 | pages= 791–799 | url=http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Ian.Jermyn/philosophy/writings/Boxonmaths.pdf | doi=10.1080/01621459.1976.10480949}}.{{Citation| first1= G. E. P. | last1=Box | first2= N. R. | last2= Draper| title=Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces | year= 1987 | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | pages=74, 274 |isbn=9780471810339}}.{{Citation| first1= G. E. P. | last1=Box | first2= J. S. | last2= Hunter | first3= W. G. | last3= Hunter | title=Statistics for Experimenters | year= 2005 | edition= 2nd | publisher=John Wiley & Sons | pages= 208, 384, 440 |isbn=9780471718130}}.

Personal life

Box married Jessie Ward in 1945.{{Cite ODNB |last=Steinberg |first=David M. |title=Box, George Edward Pelham (1919–2013) |date=2017-01-01 |url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/DNB/Box.pdf |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/109283 |access-date=}} In 1959, Box married Joan Fisher, the second of Ronald Fisher's five daughters. In 1978, Joan Fisher Box published a biography of Ronald Fisher, with substantial collaboration with Box.{{cite book |last=Box |first=Joan Fisher |date=1978 |title=R. A. Fisher: The Life of a Scientist |publisher=Wiley |section=Preface |url=http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Extras/Fisher_Life.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170408033818/http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Extras/Fisher_Life.html |archive-date=8 April 2017 |url-status=dead |isbn=0-471-09300-9}}

Box married Claire Louise Quist in 1985.

Box died on 28 March 2013. He was 93 years old.{{cite web | url = http://blogs.sas.com/content/jmp/2013/03/29/george-box-a-remembrance/ | first = Bradley |last= Jones | title = George Box: A remembrance | date = 29 March 2013 | publisher = SAS Institute Inc | access-date = 5 April 2013 }}

Selected publications

  • Box, G.E.P, Cox, D.R. (1964) "[https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/users/cox/cox72.pdf An Analysis of Transformations]". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. 26 (2): 211–252.

References

{{Reflist|35em}}

External links

{{wikiquote}}

  • [http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/pri/section3/pri3362.htm Box-Behnken designs] from a [http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/ handbook on engineering statistics] at NIST
  • [https://asq.org/about-asq/honorary-members/box ASQ: George E.P. Box Accomplishments in statistics]
  • [http://curiouscat.net/authors/1-George-E-P-Box Articles and Reports by George Box]
  • [https://web.archive.org/web/20060702220811/http://williamghunter.net/statisticsforexperimenters/ Statistics for Experimenters - Second Edition, 2005 by George Box, William G. Hunter and Stuart Hunter]
  • [https://www.informs.org/content/view/full/273116 Biography of George E. P. Box] from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences
  • {{URL|https://anomaly.io/about/}}

{{American Statistical Association Presidents}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Box, George E. P.}}

Category:1919 births

Category:People from Gravesend, Kent

Category:Alumni of University College London

Category:Imperial Chemical Industries people

Category:British Army personnel of World War II

Category:English statisticians

Category:American statisticians

Category:Bayesian statisticians

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:Presidents of the American Statistical Association

Category:Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics

Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty

Category:Fellows of the American Statistical Association

Category:Probability theorists

Category:2013 deaths

Category:British mathematical statisticians