Jerzy Spława-Neyman (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981; ) was a Polish

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 ...

and

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

who first introduced the modern concept of a confidence interval into

statistical hypothesis testing A statistical hypothesis test is a method of statistical inference used to decide whether the data provide sufficient evidence to reject a particular hypothesis. A statistical hypothesis test typically involves a calculation of a test statistic. T ...

and, with

Egon Pearson Egon Sharpe Pearson (11 August 1895 – 12 June 1980) was one of three children of Karl Pearson and Maria, née Sharpe, and, like his father, a British statistician. Career Pearson was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College ...

, revised

Ronald Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who a ...

null hypothesis The null hypothesis (often denoted ''H''0) is the claim in scientific research that the effect being studied does not exist. The null hypothesis can also be described as the hypothesis in which no relationship exists between two sets of data o ...

testing.

Neyman allocation Neyman allocation, also known as optimum allocation, is a method of sample size allocation in stratified sampling developed by Jerzy Neyman in 1934. This technique determines the optimal sample size for each stratum to minimize the variance of the ...

, an optimal strategy for choosing sample sizes in stratified sampling, is named for him. Spława-Neyman spent the first part of his professional career at various institutions in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, and then at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

; and the second part, at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

Life and career

He was born into a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

family in

Bendery Bender (, ) or Bendery (, ; ), also known as Tighina ( mo-Cyrl, Тигина, links=no), is a city within the internationally recognized borders of Moldova under ''de facto'' control of the unrecognized Transnistria, Pridnestrovian Moldavian Rep ...

, in the

Bessarabia Governorate The Bessarabia Governorate was a province (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, with its administrative centre in Kishinev (Chișinău). It consisted of an area of and a population of 1,935,412 inhabitants. The Bessarabia Governorate bordered t ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, the fourth of four children of Czesław Spława-Neyman and Kazimiera Lutosławska. His family was

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, and Neyman served as an

altar boy An altar server is a lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a Christian liturgy. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell, helping bring up the gifts, and bringing up ...

during his early childhood. Later, Neyman would become an agnostic. Neyman's family descended from a long line of Polish nobles and military heroes. He graduated from the

Kamieniec Podolski Kamianets-Podilskyi (, ; ) is a city on the Smotrych River in western Ukraine, western Ukraine, to the north-east of Chernivtsi. Formerly the administrative center of Khmelnytskyi Oblast, the city is now the administrative center of Kamianets ...

gubernial gymnasium for boys in 1909 under the name ''Yuri Cheslavovich Neyman''. He began studies at

Kharkiv University The V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (), also known as Kharkiv National University or Karazin University, is a public university in Kharkiv, Ukraine. It was founded in 1804 through the efforts of Vasily Karazin, becoming the second old ...

in 1912, where he was taught by Ukrainian probabilist

Sergei Natanovich Bernstein Sergei Natanovich Bernstein (, sometimes Romanized as ; 5 March 1880 – 26 October 1968) was a Ukrainian and Soviet mathematician of Jewish origin known for contributions to partial differential equations, differential geometry, probability theo ...

. After he read 'Lessons on the integration and the research of the primitive functions' by

Henri Lebesgue Henri Léon Lebesgue (; ; June 28, 1875 – July 26, 1941) was a French mathematician known for his Lebesgue integration, theory of integration, which was a generalization of the 17th-century concept of integration—summing the area between an ...

, he was fascinated with measure and integration. In 1921 he returned to

in a program of repatriation of

POW POW is "prisoner of war", a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict. POW or pow may also refer to: Music * P.O.W (Bullet for My Valentine song), "P.O.W" (Bull ...

s after the Polish-Soviet War. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree at

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public university, public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well ...

in 1924 for a dissertation titled "On the Applications of the Theory of Probability to Agricultural Experiments". He was examined by

Wacław Sierpiński Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński (; 14 March 1882 – 21 October 1969) was a Polish mathematician. He was known for contributions to set theory (research on the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis), number theory, theory of functions ...

and

Stefan Mazurkiewicz Stefan Mazurkiewicz (25 September 1888 – 19 June 1945) was a Polish mathematician who worked in mathematical analysis, topology, and probability. He was a student of Wacław Sierpiński and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning (''PAU''). ...

, among others. He spent a couple of years in London and Paris on a fellowship to study

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

with

Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English biostatistician and mathematician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university ...

and

Émile Borel Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel (; 7 January 1871 – 3 February 1956) was a French people, French mathematician and politician. As a mathematician, he was known for his founding work in the areas of measure theory and probability. Biograp ...

. After his return to Poland, he established the Biometric Laboratory at the

Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology The Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology is a Polish scientific research organization and a part of Polish Academy of Sciences headquartered in Warsaw, Poland. Founded in 1918, it is named after Polish biochemist and medic Marceli Nencki. It ...

in Warsaw. He published many books dealing with experiments and statistics, and devised the way which the

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

tests medicines today. Neyman proposed and studied randomized experiments in 1923. Furthermore, his paper "On the Two Different Aspects of the Representative Method: The Method of Stratified Sampling and the Method of Purposive Selection", given at the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

on 19 June 1934, was the groundbreaking event leading to modern scientific sampling. He introduced the confidence interval in his paper in 1937. Another noted contribution is the

Neyman–Pearson lemma In statistics, the Neyman–Pearson lemma describes the existence and uniqueness of the likelihood ratio as a uniformly most powerful test in certain contexts. It was introduced by Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson in a paper in 1933. The Neyman–Pea ...

, the basis of hypothesis testing. He was an Invited Speaker of the

ICM ICM may refer to: Organizations * Irish Church Missions, an Anglican mission * Institut du Cerveau, the Paris Brain Institute, a research center * Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling, University of Warsaw * Interna ...

in 1928 in Bologna and a Plenary Speaker of the ICM in 1954 in Amsterdam. In 1938 he moved to Berkeley, where he worked for the rest of his life. Thirty-nine students received their Ph.Ds under his advisorship. In 1966 he was awarded the

Guy Medal The Guy Medals are awarded by the Royal Statistical Society in three categories; Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Silver and Bronze medals are awarded annually. The Gold Medal was awarded every three years between 1987 and 2011, but is awarded bienni ...

of the

and, three years later, the U.S.

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...

. He died in

Oakland Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, in 1981.

George Dantzig George Bernard Dantzig (; November 8, 1914 – May 13, 2005) was an American mathematical scientist who made contributions to industrial engineering, operations research, computer science, economics, and statistics. Dantzig is known for his dev ...

solved two "unsolvable" problems in one's of Neyman's classes.

References

Citations

Sources

* Fisher, Ronald "Statistical methods and scientific induction" ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B'' 17 (1955), 69–78. (criticism of statistical theories of Jerzy Neyman and

Abraham Wald Abraham Wald (; ; , ; – ) was a Hungarian and American mathematician and statistician who contributed to decision theory, geometry and econometrics, and founded the field of sequential analysis. One of his well-known statistical works was ...

) * (reply to Fisher 1955) * Reid, Constance, ''Jerzy Neyman—From Life'', Springer Verlag, (1982), .

External links

*
ASA biographical article by Chin Long Chiang
*
Biography of Jerzy Neyman
from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences {{DEFAULTSORT:Neyman, Jerzy 1894 births 1981 deaths People from Bender, Moldova People from Bendersky Uyezd National Medal of Science laureates Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Econometric Society Polish statisticians American statisticians Survey methodologists National University of Kharkiv alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Mathematical analysts Philosophers of science 20th-century American philosophers People from the Russian Empire of Polish descent American agnostics Polish agnostics Former Roman Catholics Foreign members of the Royal Society 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century Polish mathematicians Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century Polish philosophers Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Academics of University College London Mathematical statisticians University of Warsaw alumni

Life and career

See also

References

Citations

Sources

External links