Person: Neyman, Jerzy
Jerzy Neyman was a Russian born American mathematician who did important work in probability and statistics including applications to meteorology and medicine.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- We should also note that Neyman wrote papers for a few years under the name Splawa-Neyman, but he dropped the first part (which is more like a sign of nobility) at the age of 30.
- Neyman excelled at the gymnasium at Kharkov and he decided, probably because he had an outstanding mathematics teacher, that he would study mathematics at university.
- Neyman began his studies at Kharkov University in the autumn if 1912.
- In the academic year 1915-16 Aleksandr Bernstein lectured to him on probability; he strongly influenced Neyman and encouraged him to read Karl Pearson's The Grammar of Science.
- In September 1917, having completed his undergraduate studies, Neyman remained at Kharkov University preparing for an academic career.
- There was great hardship and not surprisingly Neyman's health began to deteriorate.
- Despite the difficulties that he was under, Neyman passed his examinations and became a lecturer at Kharkov University, teaching higher algebra, integration, and set theory.
- Disappointed at the lack of mathematics in the statistics being studied at University College, London, Neyman obtained an extension of his fellowship to allow him to spend a year in Paris.
- In Paris for session 1926-27 Neyman attended lectures by Borel, Lebesgue (whose lectures he particularly enjoyed) and Hadamard and his interests began to move back towards sets, measure and integration.
- Neyman went on to produce fundamental results on hypothesis testing and, when Egon Pearson visited Paris in the spring of 1927, they collaborated in writing their first paper.
- Neyman returned to Poland in May 1927 and immediately tried to set up a biometric laboratory in Warsaw.
- Between 1928 and 1933 Neyman and Egon Pearson had written a number of important papers on hypothesis testing and the collaboration was highly productive with papers such as On the problem of the most efficient tests of statistical hypotheses (1933) and The testing of statistical hypotheses in relation to probabilities a priori (1933).
- Neyman obtained a three month leave of absence to go in England in 1934 to fill a temporary post in Egon Pearson's department.
- The following year the post was made permanent and Neyman held it until 1938.
- Although Fisher had inspired much of Neyman's work, now that they were working in the same building relations seemed to break down.
- In the spring of 1937 Neyman spent six weeks in the United States on a lecture tour of universities organised by Wilks.
- Then Neyman received an offer from Evans of a lectureship at the University of California at Berkeley.
- On 21 April 1938 Neyman accepted the offer from Berkeley and he arrived there in August; he worked in Berkeley for the rest of his life.
- Neyman undertook military research, particularly working on bomb sights and targeting problems.
- The mission to Greece was not a great success as far as Neyman was concerned.
- Since the professor was not neutral in the elections, articles were published in the press, and Neyman was dismissed when he disobeyed orders not to respond.
- Neyman's contributions to research in statistics over the latter part of his career were mostly in the areas of applications to meteorology and medicine.
Born 16 April 1894, Bendery, Bessarabia, Russian Empire (now Transnistria, Moldova). Died 5 August 1981, Oakland, California, USA.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Moldova, Statistics
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
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- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
