View source for Biography:Jerzy Neyman

{{short description|Polish American mathematician}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name = Jerzy Neyman
|image = Jerzy Neyman2.jpg
|image_size =
|caption = 
|birth_name=Jerzy Spława-Neyman
|birth_place = Bendery, Bessarabia Governorate, [[Place:Russian Empire|Russian Empire]] (now Bender, Moldova)
|death_date = {{death date and age|1981|08|05|1894|04|16|mf=y}}
|death_place = Oakland, {{wipe|California}}, US
|nationality = Polish
|field = [[Mathematics]]
|work_institutions = [[Organization:Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology|Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology]]<br>[[Organization:University College London|University College London]]<br>[[Organization:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]]
|alma_mater = [[Organization:University of Warsaw|University of Warsaw]]<br>Kharkov University
|doctoral_advisor = [[Biography:Wacław Sierpiński|Wacław Sierpiński]]
|doctoral_students = [[Biography:George Dantzig|George Dantzig]]<br>[[Biography:Lucien Le Cam|Lucien Le Cam]]<br>[[Biography:Evelyn Fix|Evelyn Fix]]<br>[[Biography:Erich Leo Lehmann|Erich Leo Lehmann]]<br>Joseph Hodges<br>[[Biography:Pao-Lu Hsu|Pao-Lu Hsu]]
|known_for = [[Neyman construction]]<br>[[Neyman–Pearson lemma]]<br>[[Rubin causal model|Neyman–Rubin causal model]]<br>{{no wrap|[[Sufficient statistic#Fisher–Neyman factorization theorem|Fisher–Neyman factorization theorem]]}}<br>[[Confidence interval]]<br>Hypothesis testing<br>Statistics of galaxy clusters
|prizes =Newcomb Cleveland Prize {{small|(1958)}}<br>Guy Medal {{small|(Gold, 1966)}}<br>National Medal of Science {{small|(1968)}}<br>Fellow of the Royal Society<ref name="frs">{{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 }}</ref>
}}

'''Jerzy Neyman''' (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981; born '''Jerzy Spława-Neyman'''; {{IPA-pl|ˈjɛʐɨ ˈspwava ˈnɛjman|lang}}) was a Polish mathematician and statistician who spent the first part of his professional career at various institutions in [[Place:Warsaw|Warsaw]], {{wipe|Poland}} and then at [[Organization:University College London|University College London]], and the second part at the [[Organization:University of California, Berkeley|University of California, Berkeley]]. Neyman first introduced the modern concept of a [[Confidence interval|confidence interval]] into [[Statistical hypothesis testing|statistical hypothesis testing]]<ref name="tea">{{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}}</ref> and co-revised [[Biography:Ronald Fisher|Ronald Fisher]]'s [[Null hypothesis|null hypothesis]] testing (in collaboration with Egon Pearson).

==Life and career==
He was born into a Polish family in Bendery, in the Bessarabia Governorate of the [[Place:Russian Empire|Russian Empire]], the fourth of four children of Czesław Spława-Neyman and Kazimiera Lutosławska. His family was Roman Catholic, and Neyman served as an [[Religion:Altar server|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''.<ref>[http://zhurnal.lib.ru/k/kitlinskij_a_a/gimnazij.shtml Выпускники Каменец-Подольской гимназии 1883-1920]</ref> He began studies at Kharkiv University in 1912, where he was taught by Ukrainian probabilist [[Biography:Sergei Natanovich Bernstein|Sergei Natanovich Bernstein]]. After he read 'Lessons on the integration and the research of the primitive functions' by [[Biography:Henri Lebesgue|Henri Lebesgue]], he was fascinated with measure and integration.

In 1921, he returned to {{wipe|Poland}} in a program of repatriation of POWs after the Polish-Soviet War.
He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree at [[Organization:University of Warsaw|University of Warsaw]] in 1924 for a dissertation titled "On the Applications of the Theory of Probability to Agricultural Experiments". He was examined by [[Biography:Wacław Sierpiński|Wacław Sierpiński]] and [[Biography:Stefan Mazurkiewicz|Stefan Mazurkiewicz]], among others<!-- names to be moved to a trivia section with explication that his exams did not concerned statistics-->. He spent a couple of years in London and Paris on a fellowship to study [[Statistics|statistics]] with [[Biography:Karl Pearson|Karl Pearson]] and [[Biography:Émile Borel|Émile Borel]]. After his return to Poland, he established the Biometric Laboratory at the [[Organization:Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology|Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology]] in Warsaw.

He published many books dealing with experiments and statistics, and devised the way which the [[Organization:Food and Drug Administration|FDA]] tests medicines today.

Neyman proposed and studied randomized experiments in 1923.<ref>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. [[Biography:Dorota Dabrowska|Dorota M. Dabrowska]] and Terence P. Speed.
</ref> Furthermore, his paper "On the Two Different Aspects of the Representative Method: The Method of [[Stratified sampling|Stratified Sampling]] and the Method of Purposive Selection", given at the Royal Statistical Society on 19 June 1934,<ref>Neyman, J.(1934) "On the two different aspects of the representative method: The method of stratified sampling and the method of purposive selection", ''[[Organization:Journal of the Royal Statistical Society|Journal of the Royal Statistical Society]]'', 97 (4), 557–625 {{JSTOR|2342192}}</ref> was the groundbreaking event leading to modern scientific sampling. He introduced the [[Confidence interval|confidence interval]] in his paper in 1937.<ref>{{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 }}</ref> 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<ref>{{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}}</ref> and a Plenary Speaker of the ICM in 1954 in Amsterdam.<ref>{{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}}</ref>

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, {{wipe|California}} in 1981.

==See also==
* List of Poles

== References ==
=== Citations ===
{{Reflist}}

=== Sources ===
{{refbegin}}
* 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 [[Biography:Abraham Wald|Abraham Wald]])
* {{cite journal
|title = Note on an Article by Sir Ronald Fisher
|first=Jerzy
|last=Neyman
|journal=Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B
|volume=18
|issue=2
|year=1956
|pages=288–294
|jstor=2983716
}} (reply to Fisher 1955)
* Reid, Constance, ''Jerzy Neyman—From Life'', Springer Verlag, (1982), {{ISBN|0-387-90747-5}}.
{{refend}}

==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

{{Winners of the National Medal of Science|math-stat-comp}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Neyman, Jerzy}}
[[Category:American statisticians]]
[[Category:Mathematical analysts]]
[[Category:Philosophers of science]]

{{Sourceattribution|Jerzy Neyman}}