Zygmunt Wilhelm "Z. W." Birnbaum (18 October 1903 – 15 December 2000), often known as Bill Birnbaum, was a Polish-American mathematician and statistician who contributed to

functional analysis Functional analysis is a branch of mathematical analysis, the core of which is formed by the study of vector spaces endowed with some kind of limit-related structure (for example, Inner product space#Definition, inner product, Norm (mathematics ...

, nonparametric testing and estimation, probability inequalities, survival distributions, competing risks, and reliability theory.

Education and career

After first earning a law degree and briefly practicing law, Birnbaum obtained his PhD in 1929 at the

University of Lwów The Ivan Franko National University of Lviv (named after Ivan Franko, ) is a state-sponsored university in Lviv, Ukraine. Since 1940 the university is named after Ukrainian poet Ivan Franko. The university is the oldest institution of highe ...

under the supervision of

Hugo Steinhaus Hugo Dyonizy Steinhaus ( , ; 14 January 1887 – 25 February 1972) was a Polish mathematician and educator. Steinhaus obtained his PhD under David Hilbert at Göttingen University in 1911 and later became a professor at the Jan Kazimierz Univers ...

, and was associated with the

Lwów School of Mathematics The Lwów school of mathematics () was a group of Polish mathematicians who worked in the interwar period in Lwów, Poland (since 1945 Lviv, Ukraine). The mathematicians often met at the famous Scottish Café to discuss mathematical problems, ...

. He visited

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

, Germany from 1929 to 1931, first working as an assistant for

Edmund Landau Edmund Georg Hermann Landau (14 February 1877 – 19 February 1938) was a German mathematician who worked in the fields of number theory and complex analysis. Biography Edmund Landau was born to a Jewish family in Berlin. His father was Leopo ...

. After studying insurance mathematics and earning a diploma in actuarial science with Felix Bernstein in Göttingen, he worked as an actuary in Vienna during 1931–1932, and was then transferred to Lwów where he continued working as an actuary. After obtaining a position as a correspondent for a Polish newspaper, he arrived in New York as a reporter in 1937. He became a Professor of Mathematics at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

in 1939 (with help from

Harold Hotelling Harold Hotelling (; September 29, 1895 – December 26, 1973) was an American mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist, known for Hotelling's law, Hotelling's lemma, and Hotelling's rule in economics, as well as Hotelling ...

and letters of reference from

Richard Courant Richard Courant (January 8, 1888 – January 27, 1972) was a German-American mathematician. He is best known by the general public for the book '' What is Mathematics?'', co-written with Herbert Robbins. His research focused on the areas of real ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

, and

). Birnbaum was actively involved in reliability work with

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

through the Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories during the late 1950s and 1960s, and was a key member of the "Seattle school of reliability", a group which also included Tom Bray, Gordon Crawford, James Esary,

George Marsaglia George Marsaglia (March 12, 1924 – February 15, 2011) was an American mathematician and computer scientist. He is best known for creating the diehard tests, a suite of software for measuring statistical randomness. Research on random numbers ...

, Al Marshall, Frank Proschan, Ron Pyke, and Sam Saunders. Birnbaum served as Editor of the

Annals of Mathematical Statistics The ''Annals of Mathematical Statistics'' was a peer-reviewed statistics journal published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics from 1930 to 1972. It was superseded by the '' Annals of Statistics'' and the '' Annals of Probability''. In 1 ...

(1967–1970) and as President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (1964). He received a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

in 1960 (spent at the Sorbonne, Paris), and a

Fulbright Program The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

Fellowship in 1964 (spent at the University of Rome).

Selected publications

Books

* ''Introduction to Probability and Mathematical Statistics'', 1962, Harper and Brothers.

Articles

* * * * * *

References

* * *

External links

*
William Birnbaum: MacTutor
mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk. Accessed April 16, 2024.

Zygmunt William Birnbaum papers 1920–2000, University of Washington

Zygmunt William Birnbaum photograph collection 1930-1990, University of Washington
*
UW Mathematics Dept. Newsletter, Autumn 2001

math.washington.edu via archive.org. Accessed April 16, 2024.
Photo, Z. W. Birnbaum

Z. W. Birnbaum
gf.org. Accessed April 16, 2024.
Samuel S. Wilks Award
amstat.org. Accessed April 16, 2024. {{DEFAULTSORT:Birnbaum, Z. W. 1903 births 2000 deaths University of Lviv alumni Jewish American scientists Fellows of the American Statistical Association Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century American Jews Polish emigrants to the United States University of Washington faculty People from Lviv American mathematical statisticians Functional analysts Lwów School of Mathematics