The Statistical Research Group (SRG) was a research group at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

focused on military problems during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Abraham Wald, Allen Wallis, Herbert Solomon,

Frederick Mosteller Charles Frederick Mosteller (December 24, 1916 – July 23, 2006) was an American mathematician, considered one of the most eminent statisticians of the 20th century. He was the founding chairman of Harvard's statistics department from 1957 to 1 ...

George Stigler George Joseph Stigler (; January 17, 1911 – December 1, 1991) was an American economist. He was the 1982 laureate in Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and is considered a key leader of the Chicago school of economics. Early life and e ...

Leonard Jimmie Savage Leonard Jimmie Savage (born Leonard Ogashevitz; 1917 – 1971) was an American mathematician and statistician. Economist Milton Friedman said Savage was "one of the few people I have met whom I would unhesitatingly call a genius." Education and ...

and

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and ...

were all part of the group in which 18 researchers participated. Wallis, Stigler and Friedman met as graduate students at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. Despite their shared alma mater there is no evidence that Stigler and Friedman had grown close before serving on the SRG staff together in New York City. The SRG was disbanded at the end of World War II.

Background

Statistical analysis Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying probability distribution.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers properties of ...

was widely used by Federal agencies after the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

. The statistical publications of the United States became more sophisticated between 1930 and 1940. During the mobilization to war (1940-1941) and continuing on during the war, statistics continued to gain in importance with applications in

operations research Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a branch of applied mathematics that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve management and ...

and

management information systems A management information system (MIS) is an information system used for decision-making, and for the coordination, control, analysis, and visualization of information in an organization. The study of the management information systems involves peo ...

(MIS). The Statistical Control System in the

Air Force An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...

developed under Colonel C.B. Thornton, was an example of a wartime MIS. Its mission was to provide "a continuous flow of detailed information on the status of many parts of the Air Force, including personnel, supply, operations, and basic data upon which to base attrition rates, sortie rates, crew rotation rates, maintenance needs, supply rates, etc."

Organization

The Statistical Research Group (SRG) at Columbia University was supported by the Applied Mathematics Panel (AMP) or the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), part of the

Office of Scientific Research and Development The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was an agency of the United States federal government created to coordinate scientific research for military purposes during World War II. Arrangements were made for its creation during May ...

(OSRD).

History

While teaching at Stanford during the war years, Allen Wallis wrote to a friend at the Census Bureau:

Those of us teaching statistics in various departments here are trying to work out a curriculum adapted to the immediate statistical requirements of the war. It seems probably that a good many students with research training might by training in statistics become more useful for war than in their present work, or might increase their usefulness within their present fields."

Friedman wrote an appendix called "A Cautionary Tale about Multiple Regressions" that was published in ''Alternative Approaches to Analyzing Economic Data'' in which he says that, as a researcher at SRG, he constructed two new

alloys An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which in most cases at least one is a metallic element, although it is also sometimes used for mixtures of elements; herein only metallic alloys are described. Metallic alloys often have properties ...

to be used in

aircraft engines An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft Air propulsion, propulsion system. Aircraft using power components are referred to as powered flight. Most aircraft engines are either Reciprocating ...

. His work was based on a regression model that made use of data on existing alloys. Using this model he predicted that it would take several hundred hours for the new alloys to rupture at high temperatures.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Statistical Research Group of World War II Statistical organizations United States home front during World War II History of Columbia University Technical intelligence during World War II Research groups Military history of New York City