John Tukey
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John Wilder Tukey (; June 16, 1915 – July 26, 2000) was an American
mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...
and
statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...
, best known for the development of the fast Fourier Transform (FFT) algorithm and
box plot In descriptive statistics, a box plot or boxplot is a method for graphically demonstrating the locality, spread and skewness groups of numerical data through their quartiles. In addition to the box on a box plot, there can be lines (which are ca ...
. The Tukey range test, the Tukey lambda distribution, the Tukey test of additivity, and the
Teichmüller–Tukey lemma In mathematics, the Teichmüller–Tukey lemma (sometimes named just Tukey's lemma), named after John Tukey and Oswald Teichmüller, is a Lemma (mathematics), lemma that states that every nonempty collection of finite character has a maximal element ...
all bear his name. He is also credited with coining the term '
bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...
' and the first published use of the word '
software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
'.


Biography

Tukey was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1915, to a Latin teacher father and a private tutor. He was mainly taught by his mother and attended regular classes only for certain subjects like French. Tukey obtained a BA in 1936 and MSc in 1937 in chemistry, from Brown University, before moving to
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, where in 1939 he received a PhD in
mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
after completing a doctoral dissertation titled "On denumerability in
topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ...
". During
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Tukey worked at the Fire Control Research Office and collaborated with
Samuel Wilks Sir Samuel Wilks, 1st Baronet, (2 June 1824 – 8 November 1911) was a British physician and biographer. Early life Samuel Wilks was born on 2 June 1824 in Camberwell, London, the second son of Joseph Barber Wilks, a cashier at the East India H ...
and William Cochran. He is claimed to have helped design the U-2 spy plane. After the war, he returned to Princeton, dividing his time between the university and AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1962, Tukey was elected to the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
. He became a full professor at 35 and founding chairman of the Princeton statistics department in 1965. Among many contributions to
civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
that produced a report critiquing the statistical methodology of the
Kinsey Report The Kinsey Reports are two scholarly books on human sexual behavior, ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'' (1948) and ''Sexual Behavior in the Human Female'' (1953), written by Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, Clyde Martin, and (for ''Sexual Behavi ...
, ''Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male'', which summarised "While much remains to be done, our overall impression of their work to date is favorable". From 1960 to 1980, Tukey helped design the NBC television network polls used to predict and analyze elections. He was also a consultant to the Educational Testing Service, the Xerox Corporation, and Merck & Company. He was awarded the
National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...
by President Nixon in 1973. He was awarded the
IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contributio ...
in 1982 "For his contributions to the spectral analysis of random processes and the fast Fourier transform (FFT)
algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
". Tukey retired in 1985. He died in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on July 26, 2000.


Scientific contributions

Early in his career Tukey worked on developing statistical methods for computers at
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...
where he invented the term "bit" in 1947. His statistical interests were many and varied. He is particularly remembered for his development with James Cooley of the
Cooley–Tukey FFT algorithm The Cooley–Tukey algorithm, named after J. W. Cooley and John Tukey, is the most common fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. It re-expresses the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of an arbitrary composite size N = N_1N_2 in terms of ''N''1 s ...
. In 1970, he contributed significantly to what is today known as the jackknife estimation—also termed Quenouille–Tukey jackknife. He introduced the
box plot In descriptive statistics, a box plot or boxplot is a method for graphically demonstrating the locality, spread and skewness groups of numerical data through their quartiles. In addition to the box on a box plot, there can be lines (which are ca ...
in his 1977 book, "Exploratory Data Analysis".
Tukey's range test Tukey's range test, also known as Tukey's test, Tukey method, Tukey's honest significance test, or Tukey's HSD (honestly significant difference) test, Also occasionally as "honestly," see e.g. is a single-step multiple comparison procedure and ...
, the Tukey lambda distribution,
Tukey's test of additivity In statistics, Tukey's test of additivity, named for John Tukey, is an approach used in two-way ANOVA (regression analysis involving two qualitative factors) to assess whether the factor variables ( categorical variables) are additively related to ...
, Tukey's lemma, and the
Tukey window In discrete-time signal processing, windowing is a preliminary signal shaping technique, usually applied to improve the appearance and usefulness of a subsequent Discrete Fourier Transform. Several '' window functions'' can be defined, based on ...
all bear his name. He is also the creator of several little-known methods such as the
trimean In statistics the trimean (TM), or Tukey's trimean, is a measure of a probability distribution's location defined as a weighted average of the distribution's median and its two quartiles: : TM= \frac This is equivalent to the average of the m ...
and median-median line, an easier alternative to linear regression. In 1974, he developed, with
Jerome H. Friedman Jerome Harold Friedman (born December 29, 1939) is an American statistician, consultant and Professor of Statistics at Stanford University, known for his contributions in the field of statistics and data mining.
, the concept of the
projection pursuit Projection pursuit (PP) is a type of statistical technique which involves finding the most "interesting" possible projections in multidimensional data. Often, projections which deviate more from a normal distribution are considered to be more inter ...
.


Statistical practice

He also contributed to statistical practice and articulated the important distinction between
exploratory data analysis In statistics, exploratory data analysis (EDA) is an approach of analyzing data sets to summarize their main characteristics, often using statistical graphics and other data visualization methods. A statistical model can be used or not, but pr ...
and confirmatory data analysis, believing that much statistical methodology placed too great an emphasis on the latter. Though he believed in the utility of separating the two types of analysis, he pointed out that sometimes, especially in
natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
, this was problematic and termed such situations uncomfortable science. A. D. Gordon offered the following summary of Tukey's principles for statistical practice: Tukey's lectures were described to be unusual. McCullagh described his lecture given in London in 1977:


Coining the term ''bit''

While working with
John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...
on early computer designs, Tukey introduced the word "
bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...
" as a portmanteau of "binary digit". The term "bit" was first used in an article by
Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Inst ...
in 1948.


See also

*
List of pioneers in computer science This is a list of people who made transformative breakthroughs in the creation, development and imagining of what computers could do. Pioneers : ''To arrange the list by date or person (ascending or descending), click that column's small "up-do ...


Publications

* * * * * * * * * * * * ; ''The collected works of John W Tukey'', edited by William S. Cleveland * * * * * * * * ;About John Tukey *
Interview of John Tukey about his experience at Princeton


References


External links


Royal Society obit. by Peter McCullagh

John W. Tukey: His Life and Professional Contributions
published in ''The Annals of Statistics''
John Wilder Tukey (1915–2000)
in ''
Notices of the American Mathematical Society ''Notices of the American Mathematical Society'' is the membership journal of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), published monthly except for the combined June/July issue. The first volume appeared in 1953. Each issue of the magazine since ...
''
Memories of John Tukey


by Mary Bittrich *
"Remembering John W. Tukey"
special issue of '' Statistical Science'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tukey, John Wilder 1915 births 2000 deaths People from Massachusetts National Medal of Science laureates Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the American Statistical Association IEEE Medal of Honor recipients American statisticians Survey methodologists Exploratory data analysis Princeton University faculty Princeton University alumni Brown University alumni Burials at Princeton Cemetery Foreign Members of the Royal Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American mathematicians