Jerzy Neyman
Born: April 16, 1894 in Bendery, Russia
Died: August 5, 1981 in Berkeley, California
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Jerzy Neyman was originally known as Jerzy Splawa-Neyman, but at the age of
30 he decided to drop the Splawa. His early education was provided by governesses who
educated him in both the French and German languages. Jerzy entered into the
University of Kharkov in 1912 to study physics and mathematics. While at Kharkov,
Neyman was introduced to Karl Pearson’s Grammar of Science by his teacher S.N.
Bernstein.
In 1921, at the age of 27, Jerzy Neyman was forced to move to Poland due to the
war between Russia and Poland. While in Poland, he wrote several papers on applying
probabilistic ideas to agricultural experimentation. In these papers he introduced a
randomization model for a case of a completely randomized experiment.
He also lectured in statistics and mathematics and in 1924 he received a
doctorate. Three years later, Neyman moved to London where he studied under Karl
Pearson. Around 1934, Neyman began to work with Pearson’s son Egon. Neyman and
E. Pearson worked on the theory of testing hypotheses and these ideas eventually spread.
Neyman’s other accomplishments include a theory of survey sampling and a theory of
estimation by confidence sets.
In 1937, Jerzy went to the University of California-Berkeley to start a statistics
department. He spent nearly half of his life at Berkeley and it was there where he came
up with his best asymptotically normal (BAN) estimation theory. Jerzy’s main area of
interest was in deriving optimal statistical procedures as solutions to mathematical
problems. Jerzy Neyman made a large impact on the field of statistics, including
experimental design.
The information contained in this biography was obtained from the following source(s):
http://www.mrs.umn.edu/~sungurea/introstat/history/w98/Jerzy_Neyman.html
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Neyman.html
“Neyman, Jerzy.” Biographical Memoirs. V. 63. 1994. 394-421.