mathematics

Lincoln Moses

Lincoln Moses is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Lincoln Moses rather than just read about it. In short: Lincoln Ellsworth Moses (21 December 1921 – 17 December 2006) was an American biostatistician. He was an alumnus and faculty member of Stanford University and led the Energy Information Administration from 1978 to 1980.

Key takeaways

Lincoln Moses belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Lincoln Moses to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Lincoln Moses from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Lincoln Ellsworth Moses (21 December 1921 – 17 December 2006) was an American biostatistician. He was an alumnus and faculty member of Stanford University and led the Energy Information Administration from 1978 to 1980.

Early life and education Moses was a native of Kansas City, Missouri, born on 21 December 1921. He attended San Bernardino Valley Junior College from 1937 to 1939, earning an associate of arts degree, then transferred to Stanford University, where he completed a bachelor of arts in 1941. After completing his undergraduate studies, Moses served in the United States Navy as the United States entered World War II. He returned to Stanford in 1947 as one of the first three graduate students to join the university's statistics department, and became the second student to complete his doctoral dissertation. His dissertation, An Iterative Construction of the Optimum Sequential Decision Procedure when the Cost Function is Linear, was authored under the direction of Meyer Abraham Girshick, and published in 1951.

Academic and public service career Moses began his teaching career at Teachers College, Columbia University as an assistant professor in 1950, then joined Stanford's faculty two years later. As an assistant and associate professor within the Department of Statistics, he also held a joint appointment in the Department of Preventive Medicine. He was promoted to associate professor in 1955, and became a full professor in 1959. That same year, he also joined Stanford's Department of Research and Health Policy. Moses led the Department of Statistics at Stanford from 1964 to 1968, and concurrently served the first of two terms as dean of humanities and sciences between 1965 and 1968. From 1969 to 1975, he was dean of graduate studies, then returned to the humanities and sciences deanship between 1985 and 1986. Moses retired from Stanford in 1992. Outside of Stanford, Moses was appointed the first leader of the Energy Information Administration by Jimmy Carter in 1977, and served from 1978 to 1980.

Honors and awards Moses was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship (1960), and elected to fellowship status in the American Statistical Association (1961), Institute of Mathematical Statistics (1966), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1981), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1982). He was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine in 1975.

Personal life and death Moses was married twice, and had five biological children and four stepchildren. He died at home in Portola Valley, California, on 17 December 2006, aged 84.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Lincoln Moses

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Lincoln Moses claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Lincoln Moses before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Lincoln Moses ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Lincoln Moses

In research: Lincoln Moses appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Lincoln Moses in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Lincoln Moses is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1921 births, 2006 deaths, 20th-century American statisticians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Lincoln Moses outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Lincoln Moses in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Lincoln Moses means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Lincoln Moses out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Lincoln Moses in simple terms?

Why does Lincoln Moses matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Lincoln Moses?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Lincoln Moses.