Jerzy Neyman

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Jerzy Spława-Neyman

| image = Jerzy Neyman2.jpg

| image_size =

| caption = Neyman in 1969

| birth_name = Jerzy Spława-Neyman

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1894|04|16|mf=y}}

| birth_place = Bendery, Bessarabia Governorate, Russian Empire (now Bender, Moldova)

| death_date = {{death date and age|1981|08|05|1894|04|16|mf=y}}

| death_place = Oakland, California, US

| nationality = Polish

| field = Mathematics

| work_institutions = Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology
University College London
University of California, Berkeley

| alma_mater = University of Warsaw
Kharkov University

| doctoral_advisor = Wacław Sierpiński

| doctoral_students = George Dantzig
Lucien Le Cam
Evelyn Fix
Erich Leo Lehmann
Joseph Hodges
Pao-Lu Hsu

| known_for = Neyman construction
Neyman–Pearson lemma
Neyman–Rubin causal model
{{no wrap|Fisher–Neyman factorization theorem}}
Confidence interval
Hypothesis testing
Statistics of galaxy clusters

| prizes = Newcomb Cleveland Prize {{small|(1958)}}
Guy Medal {{small|(Gold, 1966)}}
National Medal of Science {{small|(1968)}}
Fellow of the Royal Society{{Cite journal | last1 = Kendall | first1 = D. G. | last2 = Bartlett | first2 = M. S. | last3 = Page | first3 = T. L. | title = Jerzy Neyman. 16 April 1894-5 August 1981 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1982.0015 | journal = Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society | volume = 28 | pages = 379–412 | year = 1982 | jstor = 769904| doi-access = free }}

}}

Jerzy Spława-Neyman (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981; {{IPA|pl|ˈjɛʐɨ ˈspwava ˈnɛjman|lang}}) was a Polish mathematician and statistician who first introduced the modern concept of a confidence interval into statistical hypothesis testing{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9Q0EDh43cxYC&pg=PA123 | title=The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century | publisher=Macmillan | author=Salsburg, David | year=2002 | pages=122 | isbn=9780805071344}} and, with Egon Pearson, revised Ronald Fisher's null hypothesis testing. Neyman allocation, an optimal strategy for choosing sample sizes in stratified sampling, is named for him.

Spława-Neyman spent the first part of his professional career at various institutions in Warsaw, Poland, and then at University College London, and the second part at the University of California, Berkeley.

Life and career

He was born into a Polish family in Bendery, in the Bessarabia Governorate of the Russian Empire, the fourth of four children of Czesław Spława-Neyman and Kazimiera Lutosławska. His family was Roman Catholic, and Neyman served as an altar boy during his early childhood. Later, Neyman would become an agnostic. Neyman's family descended from a long line of Polish nobles and military heroes. He graduated from the Kamieniec Podolski gubernial gymnasium for boys in 1909 under the name Yuri Cheslavovich Neyman.[http://zhurnal.lib.ru/k/kitlinskij_a_a/gimnazij.shtml Выпускники Каменец-Подольской гимназии 1883-1920] He began studies at Kharkiv University in 1912, where he was taught by Ukrainian probabilist Sergei Natanovich Bernstein. After he read 'Lessons on the integration and the research of the primitive functions' by Henri Lebesgue, he was fascinated with measure and integration.

In 1921 he returned to Poland in a program of repatriation of POWs after the Polish-Soviet War.

He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree at University of Warsaw in 1924 for a dissertation titled "On the Applications of the Theory of Probability to Agricultural Experiments". He was examined by Wacław Sierpiński and Stefan Mazurkiewicz, among others. He spent a couple of years in London and Paris on a fellowship to study statistics with Karl Pearson and Émile Borel. After his return to Poland, he established the Biometric Laboratory at the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Warsaw.

He published many books dealing with experiments and statistics, and devised the way which the FDA tests medicines today.

Neyman proposed and studied randomized experiments in 1923.Neyman, Jerzy. 1923 [1990]. “On the Application of Probability Theory to Agricultural Experiments. Essay on Principles. Section 9.” Statistical Science 5 (4): 465–472. Trans. Dorota M. Dabrowska and Terence P. Speed.

Furthermore, his paper "On the Two Different Aspects of the Representative Method: The Method of Stratified Sampling and the Method of Purposive Selection", given at the Royal Statistical Society on 19 June 1934,Neyman, J.(1934) "On the two different aspects of the representative method: The method of stratified sampling and the method of purposive selection", Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 97 (4), 557–625 {{JSTOR|2342192}} was the groundbreaking event leading to modern scientific sampling. He introduced the confidence interval in his paper in 1937.{{Cite journal | last1=Neyman | first1=Jerzy | title=Outline of a Theory of Statistical Estimation Based on the Classical Theory of Probability | year=1937 | journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences | volume=236 | issue=767 | pages=333–380| doi=10.1098/rsta.1937.0005 | jstor=91337| bibcode=1937RSPTA.236..333N | doi-access=free }} Another noted contribution is the Neyman–Pearson lemma, the basis of hypothesis testing.

He was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1928 in Bologna{{cite book|author=Neyman, J.|chapter=On methods of testing hypotheses|title=In: Atti del Congresso Internazionale dei Matematici: Bologna del 3 al 10 de settembre di 1928|volume=6|pages=35–42}} and a Plenary Speaker of the ICM in 1954 in Amsterdam.{{cite book|author=Neyman, J.|chapter=Probabilistic theory of clustering of galaxies with particular reference to the hypothesis of an expanding universe|title=In: Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians: Amsterdam, 1954|volume=2|pages=298–299|year=1954}}

In 1938 he moved to Berkeley, where he worked for the rest of his life. Thirty-nine students received their Ph.Ds under his advisorship. In 1966 he was awarded the Guy Medal of the Royal Statistical Society and, three years later, the U.S. National Medal of Science. He died in Oakland, California, in 1981.

George Dantzig solved two "unsolvable" problems in one's of Neyman's classes.

References

= Citations =

= Sources =

Fisher, Ronald "Statistical methods and scientific induction" Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B 17 (1955), 69–78. (criticism of statistical theories of Jerzy Neyman and Abraham Wald)
{{cite journal

|title = Note on an Article by Sir Ronald Fisher

|author-link=Jerzy Neyman

|first=Jerzy

|last=Neyman

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

|volume=18

|issue=2

|year=1956

|pages=288–294

|doi=10.1111/j.2517-6161.1956.tb00236.x

|jstor=2983716

}} (reply to Fisher 1955)

Reid, Constance, Jerzy Neyman—From Life, Springer Verlag, (1982), {{ISBN|0-387-90747-5}}.

External links

{{MacTutor Biography|id=Neyman}}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130216021332/http://www.amstat.org/about/statisticiansinhistory/index.cfm?fuseaction=biosinfo&BioID=11 ASA biographical article by Chin Long Chiang]
{{Biographical Memoirs|neyman-jerzy}}
[https://www.informs.org/About-INFORMS/History-and-Traditions/Biographical-Profiles/Neyman-Jerzy Biography of Jerzy Neyman] from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences

Category:1894 births

Category:1981 deaths

Category:People from Bender, Moldova

Category:People from Bendersky Uyezd

Category:National Medal of Science laureates

Category:Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics

Category:Fellows of the American Statistical Association

Category:Fellows of the Econometric Society

Category:Polish statisticians

Category:American statisticians

Category:Survey methodologists

Category:National University of Kharkiv alumni