This collection of classic articles in statistics combined with commentary by the editors will be of interest to all serious statisticians.

Klappentext

This book provides a selection of pioneering papers or extracts ranging from Pascal (1654) to R.A. Fisher (1930). The editors'annotations put the articles in perspective for the modern reader. A special feature of the book is the large number of translations, nearly all made by the authors. There are several reasons for studying the history of statistics: intrinsic interest in how the field of statistics developed, learning from often brilliant ideas and not reinventing the wheel, and livening up general courses in statistics by reference to important contributors.

Inhalt

The Introduction of the Concept of Expectation--Pascal (1654) The First Example of a Formal Test of Significance -- Arbuthnott (1712) Coincidences and the Method of Inclusion and Exclusion -- Montmort (1713), N. Bernoulli (1713), and Moivre (1718) The Determination of the Accuracy of Observations -- Gauss (1816) The Introduction of Asymptotic Relative Efficiency -- Laplace (1818) The Logistic Growth Curve -- Verhulst (1845) Goodness-of-Fit Statistics: The Distributions in Normal Samples of (a) the Sum of Squares About the Population Mean, (b) the Circular Sum of Squares of Successive Differences, and (c) the Circular Serial Correlation Coeffient -- E. Abbe (1863) The Distribution of the Sample Variance Under Normality -- Helmert (1876) The Random Walk and Its Fractal Limiting Form -- Venn (1888) Estimating a Binomial Parameter Using the Likelihood Function -- Thiele (1889) Yule's Paradox ('Simpson's Paradox') -- Yule (1903) Beginnings of Extreme-Value Theory -- Bortkiewicz (1922) and Mises (1923) The Evaluation of Tournament Outcomes -- Zermelo (1929) * The Origin of Confidence Limits -- Fisher (1930)