Étienne Halphen (27 May 1911, in Bordeaux – 11 August 1954, in Neuilly-sur-Marne) was a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

mathematician. He was known for his work in geometry, on probability distributions and

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...

Biography

He was born as son of Germaine (née Weill) and Louis Halphen, a professor of history at Sorbonne, and grandson of Georges Henri Halphen and

Mathieu Weill Isaac Mathieu Weill (24 May 1851 – 5 November 1939) was a French mathematician and principal of the Collège Chaptal. Biography Mathieu Weill was born to a Jewish family in Haguenau, the son of Valentine and Isidore Weill, a mathematics teache ...

, both renowned mathematicians. He did his studies at École Normale Supérieure, where he received his ''agrégation'' in 1933. He worked as a teacher at Lycée de Sens (Yonne), where he was granted an indefinite leave of absence after a year due to health issues. From 1936 to 1940 he was member of the Research Group on Calculus of Probabilities and Mathematical Statistics. During the German occupation of France, he was banned from public service, but reinstated in 1945. During that period he was invited by Pierre Massé to join a statistics research group on hydrology at ''Societe hydro-technique de France'' (SHF). With the creation of

Électricité de France Électricité de France S.A. (literally ''Electricity of France''), commonly known as EDF, is a French multinational electric utility company, largely owned by the French state. Headquartered in Paris, with €71.2 billion in revenues in 2 ...

in 1946, Étienne Halphen and his group including Lucien Le Cam and Georges Morlat were attached to the ''Service des Études et Recherches Hydrauliques.'' ervice for studies and research in hydraulics He work there until 1951, when his health problems required hospitalisation. Suffering from periods of depression, he took his life in August 1954.

Works

* 1929 Theorem on quadrics * 1938 Most independent random variable * 1939a Convergence of estimates * 1939b On covariation * 1941a

Harmonic distribution In probability theory and statistics, the harmonic distribution is a continuous probability distribution. It was discovered by Étienne Halphen, who had become interested in the statistical modeling of natural events. His practical experience in d ...

and Type A law * 1941b Statistical analysis of water flow of the Rhine * 1945 Planning of electric energy production * 1946a Planning of electric energy production * 1946b On the industrial value of a waterfall * 1949 Estimation in probability and its application * 1952 Class of hypergeometric functions * 1953a Planning of electric energy production * 1953b Statistical analysis of the association of eye color with personality development Posthumously: * 1954 Characteristic intrinsic function, covering results obtained in 1938 and 1939 * 1955a Functions related to parabolic cylinder functions * 1955b Subjective probability * 1957 Properties of a discrete probability space invariant under permutation of its points An overview of Halphen's work on probability distributions is given by Georges Morlat.

Awards

Étienne Halphen received the ''Prix Montyon de Statistique'' of the '' Académie des sciences'' posthumuosly in November 1954 for his work on statistical hydrology.

References

1911 births 20th-century French mathematicians École Normale Supérieure alumni 1954 suicides 1954 deaths Suicides in France {{France-mathematician-stub

Biography

Works

Awards

See also

References