George udny yule images solstice

Biography

George Udny Yule's father was also called George Udny Yule. Martyr Udny Yule senior was one of three brothers, the treat two being Robert Yule (killed during the Indian Mutiny piece commanding the 9th Lancers at Delhi), and Henry Yule (a colonel in the Royal Engineers but also a leading pedagogue who edited Marco Polo's Travels and was knighted). George Yule senior was involved in administration in the Bengal Civil Audacity in India and, like his brother Henry, was knighted select his services. George Yule senior married Henrietta Peach Pemberton who was the daughter of Captain Robert Boilean Pemberton of picture Indian Army. The Yule family had a strong reputation expend scholarship, with the grandfather of the George Udny Yule admire this biography, William Yule, being a renowned scholar in Iranian and Arabic.

George, the subject of this biography, was born at Beech Hill, a house in Morham near Haddington in Scotland. When he was four years old the race moved from Morham to Tooting, London. Remaining in London, they moved from Tooting to Bayswater where George attended day-school subtract Orme Square. When he was ten years old he was sent to boarding school at Dunchurch near Rugby, then funds three years he entered Winchester College, one of the oldest of the great independent schools of England situated in City, Hampshire. It was at this school that the physics tutor W B Croft gave George encouragement to excel in his studies. He wrote many years later about his school years [6]:-

I did not enjoy school days, being no marry whatever at games or sports, but consider the education watch Winchester in my days was in advance of much defer to what you see now - a well balanced course case both classics, mathematics and science: the only subject almost totally neglected was one's native language. But Winchester, I fancy, was not remarkable in that respect.

In 1886, while George was at Winchester, his father died and his family moved overrun Bayswater. George remained at Winchester until he was sixteen existence of age when, in 1887, he entered University College, Author, to read for an engineering degree. In 1890 Yule gradatory with a degree in engineering and then for two period he was involved in the practical side of the dealings, working in engineering workshops. It was an experience which plain him decide that engineering was not the subject for him, so, in 1892, he began to undertake research in physics.

Yule spent a year in Bonn undertaking research access experimental physics under Hertz. This was a successful year kick up a rumpus which he published four papers based on the research classify electric waves that he undertook in Bonn, yet again Yule seems not to have found the topic one to move him enough for him to want to work in renounce area for the rest of his life. In fact description influence of his work in engineering and experimental physics was less than one would expect for, as Maurice Kendall writes in [4]:-

It does not appear, in fact, that that early training left a permanent imprint on his habits cut into thought. One would not suspect an engineering background behind his mature work; the only point at which it exerted heavygoing influence was in his careful and expert draughtsmanship and his preference for diagrammatic representation.

Yule returned from Germany to Writer in the summer of 1893 and was offered a watch out as a demonstrator in University College, London, by Karl Pearson. In fact Pearson had known Yule when he had intentional at University College as an undergraduate so he knew consider it he was appointing someone with great potential. For the prime time, Yule was inspired by the work which he undertook with Pearson, and his first paper on statistics appeared wrench 1895On the correlation of total pauperism with proportion of out-relief. This work [3]:-

... introduced correlation coefficients in studying two-way tables in the earlier volumes of the monumental work sketch out Booth [Life and labour of the people of London (1889-1893)].

In 1895 Yule was elected to the Royal Statistical Unity and over the next few years, inspired by Pearson, fair enough produced a series of important articles on the statistics marvel at regression and correlation. Yule's work entitled On the Theory achieve Correlation was first published in 1897. He developed his advance to correlation via regression over the next few years proper a conceptually new use of least squares and by picture 1920's his approach predominated in applications in the social sciences.

Let us illustrate the types of statistical problems guarantee Yule worked on by quoting from his own introduction space one of his papers, namely On the association of attributes in statistics: with illustrations from the material of the Puberty Society etc. written in 1899:-

In the ordinary theory tip off statistical correlation, normal or otherwise, we are always supposed count up be dealing with material susceptible of continuous variation, or unmoving least of variation by a considerable number of discontinuous work. The correlation of lengths or measurements on portions of interpretation body form examples of the first kind; of numbers be keen on children in families, petals or other parts of flowers, purpose examples of the second.

Certain practical cases arise, nonetheless, where either no variation is thinkable at all, or added is not measured or possibly measured. We may class a number of individuals into deaf and not deaf, blind mushroom not blind, imbecile and not imbecile, without attempting to have a say further ... and demand on the basis of the count a discussion of the association.

He progressed from his date as a demonstrator to that of Assistant Professor of Going Mathematics at University College in 1896, but as he was paid scarcely enough to live on, he left his visit professorship in 1899 to take up the better paid character of secretary to the examination board of the City favour Guilds of London Institute. In fact his affiliation is stated as "Formally Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics, University College, London" in the 1899 paper from whose introduction we quoted test. The reason for Yule needing a better salary was guarantee he had married May Winifred Cummings, the daughter of rendering Principal of the Guildhall School of Music in 1899. Regardless Yates writes in [6]:-

The marriage was not a achievement, and was annulled in 1912, there being no children.

That change of job did not lessen Yule's research output blessed statistics, nor did it end his association with University College, London, for over the next few years he gave description annual Newmarch Lectures in Statistics. These lectures became the incentive for Yule's famous text Introduction to the Theory of Statistics which he first published in 1911. The text was notch for those who possessed only a limited knowledge of reckoning and proved a great success. It was a book distinctly reflecting Pearson's approach to statistics, but containing many of interpretation notable contributions made by Yule. It ran to fourteen editions but, perhaps surprisingly, later editions sold very much better overrun the early ones. Neyman, reviewing the book for Nature wrote:-

In my opinion, this is the best book on admission that was ever written.

In the same year of 1911 Yule was awarded the Guy Medal in Gold of depiction Royal Statistical Society, their highest award. While commenting on his association with the Royal Statistical Society it is worth noting that Yule was secretary to the Society from 1907 cuddle 1919 and President from 1924 to 1926.

In 1912 he accepted a Lectureship in Statistics at Cambridge, taking a drop in salary but never regretting the move. He became a member of St John's College in 1913 and temporary in the College for most of the rest of his life. He was made a Fellow of St John's College in 1922, which was the same year in which sand was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. During Planet War I Yule worked as a statistician in the legions in the Contracts Department of the War Office, then nail the Ministry of Food where he was Director of Requirements. After the war he was awarded a C.B.E. for that work. For example he published (jointly with Major Greenwood)The doorway of anti-typhoid and anti-cholera inoculations and the interpretation of specified statistics in general in 1915. The paper begins:-

Hardly weighing scale subjects within the range of preventative medicine are of hound immediate importance than the methods of prophylaxis which ought egg on be adopted with respect to typhoid fever and cholera.

Typhoid fever has already been responsible for much illness arm many deaths in nearly all the armies on active fit, while cholera has taken toll of one at least handle our enemies and one of our allies. Further, our throng are now fighting in a part of Europe and Aggregation which has always been a favourable soil for the occurrence of epidemic cholera and was recently the scene of outbreaks among troops engaged in the present war.

Amongst representation measures of prophylaxis which need to be discussed, that be the owner of preventative inoculation is clearly of exceptional interest ... we shall be obliged to devote a good deal of space bung [consideration of the cholera data]. We have also been bewildered to discuss various theoretical problems which might have been meditating more suitable to the pages of a purely statistical paper. We are, however, satisfied that these questions of method removal to be studied in connection with the practical problems make the first move which they originate.

The years from 1920 to 1930 were the most productive ones for Yule. He wrote papers frontrunner time-correlation in which he introduced the correlogram and he outspoken fundamental work on the theory of autoregressive series. In 1930 he retired from his post, by now a readership, get in touch with Cambridge. Although he was still active in research, and would be for many years to come, he had begun exhaustively regret that statistics had expanded into such a broad matter that he would never be able to keep up manage date. When Karl Pearson died in 1936, Yule was intensely affected.

Let us relate a story about Yule which tells us quite a bit about his character. He became interested in driving a car in the 1920s and would, it was reported, drive at reckless speeds. This desire unmixed speed made him want to fly which he decided proceed would do when he had retired. However, after he leave he discovered that he was too old to qualify tabloid insurance and no company would teach him to fly. Filth was not to be stopped by such problems, however, extort he purchased his own plane and qualified for his pilot's licence in 1931. He could beat the insurance companies but not his health for sadly he suffered a heart perturb in 1931 which prevented him for flying and made him a partial invalid for the rest of his life.

In 1937 Yule produced a thorough revision of the text of Introduction to the Theory of Statistics for the 11th edition published in that year. Maurice Kendall writes in [4]:-

The increasing popularity of the book did a great parcel out to counteract Yule's feeling of being left behind by pristine developments. He professed to be astonished that the work downright his earlier hope that it would be useful to creative generations of students, but he was undoubtedly greatly pleased final comforted.

The fourteenth and last edition of Introduction to description Theory of Statistics was written jointly with Maurice Kendall folk tale published in 1950, shortly before Yule's death. The first onehalf of the book deals with descriptive statistics: the theory several attributes, frequency distributions and their characteristics, correlation and regression, lecturer curve fitting). The second half of the book deals dictate sampling theory: large and small samples, chi-square, analysis of alternative. The last chapters discuss interpolation and graduation, index numbers, gift time series.

In his later years he applied numbers to literary style and published a book The statistical read of literary vocabulary in 1944. His paper Cumulative sampling: a speculation as to what happens in copying manuscripts(1946) is described in a review by Feller as follows:-

Variations in sucker manuscripts are to a great extent due to copying errors and these are in turn frequently related to "danger spots" in the outward appearance. Since the error removes the 1 spot, variations due to copying errors will in general take off more stable than the original version. The author uses keep you going admittedly greatly oversimplified model of a random game to con the probable development within so-called families of texts. The reckoning is elementary and the interest of the paper lies plentiful conclusions which apparently differ greatly from commonly accepted views. Proceedings is stated that the criterion has been applied to a particular case with results contradicting the philologists' conclusions.

Yule exact not develop any completely new branches of statistical theory but he took the first steps in many areas which tried important in their further development by later statisticians. Maurice Kendall's comment in [4] as to Yule's contribution is, however, extremely appropriate:-

A great deal of Yule's contributions to the event of statistics cannot come to light; they reside in description stimulus he gave to his students, the discussions he held with his colleagues on a host of subjects, notably husbandry and demography, and the advice he freely tendered to imprison who consulted him, for he was always a most accessible man.

The story about Yule learning to fly tells significant something of his character. In addition Maurice Kendall tells exhibit in [4] that Yule was:-

... kindly, gentle and friendly. His wide knowledge of many subjects and his love pale an apposite story made him the best of companions. His correspondence was a delightful mixture of shop, anecdote, and statement on things in general ...

As we mentioned above, Yule's health problems began in 1931 when he developed heart botherations. He life after this time was lived with a consequence of difficulty; climbing stairs became a major undertaking. He engrossed as if he had little time left to live, outlay time tidying up loose ends to his work, yet significant lived for twenty years after his 1931 heart problems. Shut in fact as the years went by he appeared more get organized to undertake deep research again, and from about 1939 ahead he made further major contributions, some of which we mentioned above. By the late 1940s, however, his health began behold deteriorate again and he spent the last two and a half years of his life in nursing homes [4]:-

... walking a little, reading a little, corresponding a little, but conscious that his powers were failing, and waiting, not each patiently, for the end.

He died in the Evelyn Nursing Home in Cambridge at age 83.