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Origins Statistics arose from the need of states to collect data on their people and economies, in order to administer them. Its meaning broadened in the early 19th century to include the collection and analysis of data in general. Today statistics is widely employed in government, business, in the natural and social sciences

History of Statistics Statistics has an interesting history of development. Before becoming a science in its modern sense, statistics had a long history of development. Numerical data relating to particular events, were being used already in antiquity

Antiquity The origin of descriptive statistics can be traced to ancient Rome and China, the Babylonians and Egyptians carried censuses in B.C. It is known that 5 thousand years BC a population census took place in China, registration of property was conducted in ancient Rome

Ancient Rome Roman Emperor Augustus (27 B.C.-17 A.D.) conducted surveys on births and deaths of the citizens of the empire as well as the amount of livestock each owned and the crops each harvested. In order to use this information, the Romans had to develop methods of collecting, organizing, and summarizing data

Middle Ages In the Middle Ages, censuses of population, household goods and land were conducted. During the fourteenth century, people began keeping records on births, deaths, and accidents in order to determine insurance rates

School of Political arithmetic The first scientific school which was much closer to the modern understanding of statistics was an English school of political arithmetic. Its founders were William Petty ( ) and John Graunt ( )

William Petty and John Graunt

John Graunt John Graunt (24 April April 1674) was one of the first demographers. Graunt, along with William Petty, developed early human statistical and census methods that later provided a framework for modern demography. He is credited with producing the first life table, giving probabilities of survival to each age. Graunt is also considered as one of the first experts in epidemiology, since his famous book was concerned mostly with public health statistics

John Graunt John Graunt studied the number of males and females born. He discovered that slightly more males were born than females, but that more males than females died during the first year of life

William Petty Sir William Petty (27 May 1623 – 16 December 1687) was an English economist, scientist and philosopher. It is for his theories on economics and his methods of political arithmetic that he is best remembered, however, and he is attributed as having started the philosophy of 'laissez-faire' in relation to government activity

William Petty Petty's only statistical technique is the use of simple averages. He would not be a statistician by today's standards but during his time a statistician was merely one that employed the use of quantitative data. Because obtaining census data was difficult, if not impossible, especially for Ireland, he applied methods of estimation

Gottfried Achenwall Gottfried Achenwall (20 October 1719 – 1 May 1772) was a German philosopher and statistician. He is counted among the inventors of the term statistics. He first began to read a new course "statistics" in the University of Göttingen, which explained how the state was arranged

Adolphe Quetelet The next direction of statistical sciences - statistics and mathematics. Among the representatives of this trend a famous Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet ( ) should be noted as a founder of the mean values theory The next direction of statistical sciences - statistics and mathematics. Among the representatives of this trend a famous Belgian statistician Adolphe Quetelet ( ) should be noted as a founder of the mean values theory

Adolphe Quetelet

Adolphe Quetelet Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quételet (22 February 1796 – 17 February 1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He was influential in introducing statistical methods to the social sciences. Quetelet founded several statistical journals and societies, he was especially interested in creating international cooperation among statisticians

Adolphe Quetelet The new science of probability and statistics was mainly used in astronomy at the time, to get a handle on measurement errors with the method of least squares. Quetelet was among the first who attempted to apply it to social science, planning what he called a "social physics". He was keenly aware of the overwhelming complexity of social phenomena, and the many variables that needed measurement

Adolphe Quetelet His goal was to understand the statistical laws underlying such phenomena as crime rates, marriage rates or suicide rates. He wanted to explain the values of these variables by other social factors. These ideas were rather controversial among other scientists at the time who held that it contradicted a concept of freedom of choice

Adolphe Quetelet Adolphe Quetelet was a great organizer of statistical science and practice. Thanks to his efforts in 1846 there was carried out the first Belgian population census, based on scientific principles of organization and methodology

Adolphe Quetelet He organized the International Statistical Congresses. There were 9 congresses from 1853 till They gathered statisticians of the world to discuss and develop a unified state statistical methodology. Starting from those times national statistical procedures had been conducted by governments of corresponding countries

Mathematicians Mathematical trend in statistics was developed in England by Francis Galton ( ) and Karl Pearson ( ), William Sealy Gosset ( ), better known under the pseudonym Student, Ronald Fisher ( ), Wesley Clair Mitchell ( ) and others

Francis Galton

Karl Pearson

Ronald Fisher

History of Statistics Gregor Mendel ( ) used probability and statistics in his studies of heredity at a monastery in Brunn; Sir Francis Galton ( ) did correlation studies using peas, moths, dogs, and humans. Sir Ronald Fisher ( ) developed statistical methods in inferential techniques, experimental design, estimation, and analysis of variance. Many new statistical methods have been developed since 1900, and new techniques in research and statistics are being studied and perfected each year

Origins Because of its origins in government and its data-centric world view, statistics is considered to be not a subfield of mathematics but rather a distinct field that uses mathematics. Its mathematical foundations were laid in the 17th and 18th centuries with the development of probability theory

Origins The method of least squares was invented around the turn of the 19th century by several authors. Since then new techniques of probability and statistics have been in continual development. Modern computers have expedited large-scale statistical computation, and have also made possible new methods that would be impractical to perform manually

Prominent Russian Statisticians A prominent place in the development of Russian statistical science and practice belongs to Ivan Kirillov ( ), Ivan Germann( ), Dmitry Zhuravsky ( ), Petr Semenov-Tian-Shansky ( ), July Yanson ( ), Alexandre Chuprov ( ), Vasily Nemchinov ( ), Stanislav Strumilin ( ), Vladimir Starovsky ( ) and others A prominent place in the development of Russian statistical science and practice belongs to Ivan Kirillov ( ), Ivan Germann ( ), Dmitry Zhuravsky ( ), Petr Semenov-Tian-Shansky ( ), July Yanson ( ), Alexandre Chuprov ( ), Vasily Nemchinov ( ), Stanislav Strumilin ( ), Vladimir Starovsky ( ) and others

Former Head of the Federal Statistical Agency Vladimir Sokolin

This is the final banquet of the Second World Forum of statisticians - July 1, 2007 in Istanbul.Near Sokolin his wife Jeanne and Assistant Ilya. Right - the head of the statistical service of Lithuania Algirdas Shemetov. I made this picture This is the final banquet of the Second World Forum of statisticians - July 1, 2007 in Istanbul.Near Sokolin his wife Jeanne and Assistant Ilya. Right - the head of the statistical service of Lithuania Algirdas Shemetov. I made this picture

Head of the Federal Statistical Agency Alexandre Surinov

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