John W. Tukey

created by Percepied
(person) by Percepied (4.4 mon) (print)   (I like it!) Thu Oct 12 2000 at 1:25:23

(1915-2000) Statistician who helped introduce computers to the field of statistics. He spent many decades as a professor at Princeton University and a researcher at Bell Labs. Among his contributions are:

  • Coining the word software in a 1958 article of the American Mathematical Monthly.
  • Coining the word bit in 1946, while at Bell Labs.
  • Development of many robust methods in statistics, which are techniques resistant to small sample sizes and outliers. An example of a robust technique is the use of the median instead of the mean, since the median is less easily influenced by a small number of extreme values.
  • Development of exploratory data analysis, a set of techniques for analyzing and describing data primarily using graphics.
  • Discovery (along with James Cooley) of the Fast Fourier Transform in 1965. (Actually a rediscovery; Gauss invented it 150 years earlier.)
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