Mathematician:Karl Pearson

Mathematician

Influential English mathematician and biometrician.

Credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics.

Contributed significantly to the field of biometrics, meteorology, theories of social Darwinism and eugenics.

Nationality

English

History

• Born: 27 March 1857 in London, England
• Died: 27 April 1936 in Coldharbour, Surrey, England

Theorems and Definitions

• Pearson's System of Continuous Curves
• Pearson's Chi-Squared Test
• Pearson Correlation Coefficient (also known as the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient or the Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient)

Definitions of concepts named for Karl Pearson can be found here.

Publications

• 1901: On the Theory of Consistence of Logical Class-Frequencies, and Its Geometrical Representation (with G. Udny Yule)

As Editor

• 1901: Founder of Biometrika with Francis Galton and Walter Frank Raphael Weldon

Notable Quotes

The mathematician, carried along on his flood of symbols, dealing apparently with purely formal truths, may still reach results of endless importance for our description of the physical universe.

-- Quoted in 1937: Eric Temple Bell: Men of Mathematics: They Say: What Say They? : Let Them Say

Also known as

Karl Pearson was initially named Carl, but changed it to Karl for political reasons.

Sources

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson: "Karl Pearson": MacTutor History of Mathematics archive

• 1937: Eric Temple Bell: Men of Mathematics ... (previous) ... (next): They Say: What Say They? : Let Them Say
• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Pearson, Karl (1857-1936)
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Pearson, Karl (1857-1936)
• 2014: Christopher Clapham and James Nicholson: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Mathematics (5th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): Pearson, Karl (1857-1936)