mathematics

Stephen Stigler

Stephen Stigler 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 Stephen Stigler rather than just read about it. In short: Stephen Mack Stigler (born August 10, 1941) is the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor at the Department of Statistics of the University of Chicago. He has authored several books on the history of statistics; he is the son of the economist George Stigler.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Stephen Mack Stigler (born August 10, 1941) is the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor at the Department of Statistics of the University of Chicago. He has authored several books on the history of statistics; he is the son of the economist George Stigler. Stigler is also known for Stigler's law of eponymy which states that no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer – whose first formulation he credits to sociologist Robert K. Merton.

Biography Stigler was born in Minneapolis. He received his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of California, Berkeley. His dissertation was on linear functions of order statistics, and his advisor was Lucien Le Cam. His research has focused on statistical theory of robust estimators and the history of statistics. Stigler taught at University of Wisconsin–Madison until 1979 when he joined the University of Chicago. In 2006, he was elected to membership of the American Philosophical Society, and is a past president (1994) of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. He received the Quantrell Award. His father was the economist George Stigler, who was a close friend of Milton Friedman.

Bibliography

Books The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty before 1900. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1986. ISBN 978-0-6744-0341-3. Statistics on the Table: The History of Statistical Concepts and Methods. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-6740-0979-0. The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2016. ISBN 978-0-6740-8891-7. Casanova's Lottery: The History of a Revolutionary Game of Chance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2022. ISBN 9780226820781.

As editor Stigler, S. M. (1980). American Contributions to Mathematical Statistics in the Nineteenth Century (2 Vols.). New York: Arno Press. ISBN 978-0-4051-2590-4. Stigler, S. M.; Wong, W. H.; Xu, D. (2002). R. R. Bahadur's Lectures on the Theory of Estimation (Lecture Notes-Regional Monograph Series, Vol. 39). Beachwood, OH: Institute for Mathematical Statistics. ISBN 978-0-9406-0053-9.

Selected articles ——— Gergonne, J. D. (1974) [1815]. Ralph St. John and S. M. Stigler (ed.). "The application of the method of least squares to the interpolation of sequences (translated by Ralph St. John and S. M. Stigler)". Historia Mathematica. 1 (4) (translated by Ralph St. John and S. M. Stigler from the 1815 French ed.): 439–47. doi:10.1016/0315-0860(74)90034-2. ——— Stigler, Stephen M. (1974). "Gergonne's 1815 paper on the design and analysis of polynomial regression experiments". Historia Mathematica. 1 (4): 431–39. doi:10.1016/0315-0860(74)90033-0. ——— Stigler, Stephen M. (March 1978). "Mathematical statistics in the early States". Annals of Statistics. 6 (2): 239–65. doi:10.1214/aos/1176344123. JSTOR 2958876. MR 0483118. Stigler, Stephen M. (1980). "Mathematical Statistics in the Early States". In Stephen M. Stigler (ed.). American Contributions to Mathematical Statistics in the Nineteenth Century, Volumes I & II. Vol. I. New York: Arno Press. Stigler, Stephen M. (1989). "Mathematical Statistics in the Early States". In Peter Duren (ed.). A Century of Mathematics in America. Vol. III. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society. pp. 537–64. ——— Stigler, Stephen M. (1978). "Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, statistician". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A. 141 (3): 287–322. doi:10.2307/2344804. JSTOR 2344804. ——— Stigler, S. M. (1980). Stigler's law of eponymy. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 39: 147–58 (Merton Festschrift Volume, F. Gieryn (ed)) ——— Stigler, Stephen M. (November 1983). "Who discovered Bayes's theorem?". The American Statistician. 37 (4): 290–96. doi:10.2307/2682766. JSTOR 2682766. MR 1712969. Republished in Statistics on the table (). ——— Stephen M. Stigler (November 1992). "A Historical View of Statistical Concepts in Psychology and Educational Research". American Journal of Education. 101 (1): 60–70. doi:10.1086/444032. S2CID 143685203.

See also Chicago school of economics George Stigler List of examples of Stigler's law Milton Friedman Stigler's law of eponymy

References

External links

Official CV of Stephen M. Stigler (September 2015) Homepage at the University of Chicago Archived 2013-04-28 at the Wayback Machine Mathematics Genealogy Project: Stephen Mack Stigler Works by or about Stephen Stigler at the Internet Archive

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stephen Stigler

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stephen Stigler 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 Stephen Stigler 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 Stephen Stigler 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 Stephen Stigler

In research: Stephen Stigler 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 Stephen Stigler 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: Stephen Stigler is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1941 births, American historians of mathematics, American people of German descent, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stephen Stigler 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 Stephen Stigler in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stephen Stigler 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 Stephen Stigler out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Stephen Stigler in simple terms?

Why does Stephen Stigler 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 Stephen Stigler?

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 Stephen Stigler.