2010-07-21

Great statistician passed away

I heard a sad news: Eminent statistician David Blackwell has died at 91

Professor Blackwell, though a mathematician or statistician, is quite famous to us economists for his significant contribution in mathematical statistics and dynamic programming.
Here is a link to the wikipedia article about him.

He has written many influential papers such as:
  • "Conditional Expectation and Unbiased Sequential Estimation," Annals of Mathematical Statistics, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Mar., 1947), pp. 105-110
  • "Equivalent Comparisons of Experiments," Annals of Mathematical Statistics, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Jun., 1953), pp. 265-272  
  • "Discounted Dynamic Programming," Annals of Mathematical Statistics, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Feb., 1965), pp. 226-235

Interestingly, despite his deep thoughts and ingenious works on each research topic, he described himself as follows:
I've worked in so many areas—I'm sort of a dilettante. Basically, I'm not interested in doing research and I never have been.

May he rest in peace.

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