Carlo Emilio Bonferroni (28 January 1892 – 18 August 1960) was an Italian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who worked on

probability theory Probability theory or probability calculus is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expre ...

Biography

Bonferroni studied piano and conducting in

Turin Conservatory The Conservatorio Statale di Musica Giuseppe Verdi, also known as the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi or Conservatorio Torino and more commonly known in English as the Turin Conservatory, is a music conservatory in Turin, Italy. It should not be confu ...

and at

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...

under

Giuseppe Peano Giuseppe Peano (; ; 27 August 1858 – 20 April 1932) was an Italian mathematician and glottologist. The author of over 200 books and papers, he was a founder of mathematical logic and set theory, to which he contributed much Mathematical notati ...

and

Corrado Segre Corrado Segre (20 August 1863 – 18 May 1924) was an Italian mathematician who is remembered today as a major contributor to the early development of algebraic geometry. Early life Corrado's parents were Abramo Segre and Estella De Ben ...

, where he obtained his

laurea In Italy, the ''laurea'' is the main post-secondary academic degree. The name originally referred literally to the laurel wreath, since ancient times a sign of honor and now worn by Italian students right after their official graduation ceremo ...

. During this time he also studied at

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

and

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

. During World War I, he was an officer among the engineers. Bonferroni held a position as assistant professor at the

Polytechnic University of Turin The Polytechnic University of Turin (, abbreviated as PoliTO) is the oldest Italian Public university, public Institute of technology, technical university. The university offers several courses in the fields of Engineering, Architecture, Urban ...

, and in 1923 took up the chair of financial mathematics at the Economics Institute of the

University of Bari The University of Bari Aldo Moro () is a public higher education institution founded in 1925 in Bari, Apulia, in Southern Italy. The university has a student population of around 40,000. A recent name change refers to the statesman and prime mi ...

. In 1933 he transferred to

University of Florence The University of Florence ( Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'') (in acronym UNIFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The f ...

, where he held his chair until his death. Bonferroni is best known for the Bonferroni inequalities (a generalization of the

union bound In probability theory, Boole's inequality, also known as the union bound, says that for any finite or countable set of events, the probability that at least one of the events happens is no greater than the sum of the probabilities of the indiv ...

), and for the

Bonferroni correction In statistics, the Bonferroni correction is a method to counteract the multiple comparisons problem. Background The method is named for its use of the Bonferroni inequalities. Application of the method to confidence intervals was described by ...

in statistics (which he did not invent, but which is related to the Bonferroni inequalities).

Biography

See also

References

Further reading