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Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis OBE, FNA, FASc, FRS (29 June 1893– 28 June 1972) was an Indian scientist and statistician. He is best remembered for the
Mahalanobis distance The Mahalanobis distance is a measure of the distance between a point ''P'' and a distribution ''D'', introduced by P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. Mahalanobis's definition was prompted by the problem of identifying the similarities of skulls based ...
, a statistical measure, and for being one of the members of the first Planning Commission of free India. He made pioneering studies in
anthropometry Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various atte ...
in India. He founded the
Indian Statistical Institute Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a higher education and research institute which is recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the 1959 act of the Indian parliament. It grew out of the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prasanta C ...
, and contributed to the design of large-scale sample surveys. For his contributions, Mahalanobis has been considered the father of modern statistics in India.


Early life

Mahalanobis belonged to a family of Bengali landed gentry who lived in Bikrampur (now in
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...
). His grandfather Gurucharan (1833–1916) moved to Calcutta in 1854 and built up a business, starting a chemist shop in 1860. Gurucharan was influenced by
Debendranath Tagore Debendranath Tagore (15 May 1817 – 19 January 1905) was an Indian Hindu philosopher and religious reformer, active in the Brahmo Samaj (earlier called Bhramho Sabha) ("Society of Brahma", also translated as ''Society of God''). He joined Brahm ...
(1817–1905), father of the Nobel Prize-winning poet,
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
. Gurucharan was actively involved in social movements such as the Brahmo Samaj, acting as its treasurer and president. His house on 210 Cornwallis Street was the centre of the Brahmo Samaj. Gurucharan married a widow, an action against social traditions. Gurucharan's elder son, Subodhchandra (1867–1953), became a distinguished educator after studying physiology at Edinburgh University. He was elected as a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...
br>
He was the Head of the Dept. of Physiology, University of Cardiff (the first Indian to occupy this post in a British university). In 1900, Subodhchandra returned to India, founding the Dept. of Physiology in the Presidency College, Calcutta. Subodh Chandra also became a member of the Senate of the
University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every yea ...
. Gurucharan's younger son, Prabodh Chandra (1869–1942), was the father of P.  C.  Mahalanobis. Born in the house at 210 Cornwallis Street, Mahalanobis grew up in a socially active family surrounded by intellectuals and reformers. Mahalanobis received his early schooling at the Brahmo Boys School in Calcutta, graduating in 1908. He joined the Presidency College, then affiliated with the
University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a public collegiate state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered one of best state research university all over India every yea ...
, where he was taught by teachers who included
Jagadish Chandra Bose Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (;, ; 30 November 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a biologist, physicist, botanist and an early writer of science fiction. He was a pioneer in the investigation of radio microwave optics, made significant contribution ...
, and Prafulla Chandra Ray. Others attending were Meghnad Saha, a year junior, and
Subhas Chandra Bose Subhas Chandra Bose ( ; 23 January 1897 – 18 August 1945 * * * * * * * * *) was an Indian nationalist whose defiance of British authority in India made him a hero among Indians, but his wartime alliances with Nazi Germany and Imperi ...
, two years his junior at college. Mahalanobis received a
Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
degree with honours in physics in 1912. He left for England in 1913 to join the
University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...
. After missing a train, he stayed with a friend at
King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...
. He was impressed by
King's College Chapel King's College Chapel is the chapel of King's College in the University of Cambridge. It is considered one of the finest examples of late Perpendicular Gothic English architecture and features the world's largest fan vault. The Chapel was bui ...
and his host's friend M. A. Candeth suggested that he could try joining there, which he did. He did well in his studies at King's, but also took an interest in cross-country walking and punting on the river. He interacted with the mathematical genius
Srinivasa Ramanujan Srinivasa Ramanujan (; born Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar, ; 22 December 188726 April 1920) was an Indian mathematician. Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, ...
during the latter's time at Cambridge. After his
Tripos At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mat ...
in physics, Mahalanobis worked with
C. T. R. Wilson Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, (14 February 1869 – 15 November 1959) was a Scottish physicist and meteorologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of the cloud chamber. Education and early life Wilson was born in the parish ...
at the
Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
. He took a short break and went to India, where he was introduced to the Principal of Presidency College and was invited to take classes in physics. After returning to England, Mahalanobis was introduced to the journal ''
Biometrika ''Biometrika'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Oxford University Press for thBiometrika Trust The editor-in-chief is Paul Fearnhead ( Lancaster University). The principal focus of this journal is theoretical statistics. It was ...
.'' This interested him so much that he bought a complete set and took them to India. He discovered the utility of statistics to problems in
meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...
and
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, beginning to work on problems on his journey back to India. In
Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...
, Mahalanobis met Nirmalkumari (Rani), daughter of Heramba Chandra Maitra, a leading educationist and member of the Brahmo Samaj. They married on 27 February 1923, although her father did not completely approve of the union. He was concerned about Mahalanobis's opposition to various clauses in the membership of the student wing of the Brahmo Samaj, including prohibitions against members' drinking alcohol and smoking. Sir Nilratan Sircar, P. C. Mahalanobis' maternal uncle, took part in the wedding ceremony in place of the father of the bride.


Indian Statistical Institute

Many colleagues of Mahalanobis took an interest in
statistics Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...
. An informal group developed in the Statistical Laboratory, which was located in his room at the Presidency College, Calcutta. On 17 December 1931 Mahalanobis called a meeting with Pramatha Nath Banerji (Minto Professor of Economics), Nikhil Ranjan Sen (Khaira Professor of Applied Mathematics) and Sir R. N. Mukherji. Together they established the
Indian Statistical Institute Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a higher education and research institute which is recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the 1959 act of the Indian parliament. It grew out of the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prasanta C ...
(ISI) in
Baranagar ("City of hogs") , settlement_type = City , image_seal = , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = , pushpin_map = India West Bengal#India3#Asia , pushpin_label_ ...
, and formally registered on 28 April 1932 as a non-profit distributing learned society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. The institute was initially in the Physics Department of the Presidency College; its expenditure in the first year was Rs. 238. It gradually grew with the pioneering work of a group of his colleagues, including S. S. Bose, J. M. Sengupta, R. C. Bose, S. N. Roy, K. R. Nair, R. R. Bahadur, Gopinath Kallianpur, D. B. Lahiri and C. R. Rao. The institute also gained major assistance through Pitambar Pant, who was a secretary to Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India du ...
. Pant was trained in statistics at the Institute and took a keen interest in its affairs. In 1933, the Institute founded the journal ''
Sankhya ''Samkhya'' or ''Sankya'' (; Sanskrit सांख्य), IAST: ') is a dualistic school of Indian philosophy. It views reality as composed of two independent principles, '' puruṣa'' ('consciousness' or spirit); and ''prakṛti'', (nature ...
,'' along the lines of
Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...
's ''Biometrika''. The institute started a training section in 1938. Many of the early workers left the ISI for careers in the United States and with the government of India. Mahalanobis invited J. B. S. Haldane to join him at the ISI; Haldane joined as a Research Professor from August 1957, staying until February 1961. He resigned from the ISI due to frustrations with the administration and disagreements with Mahalanobis' policies. He was concerned with the frequent travels and absence of the director and complained that the "... journeyings of our Director define a novel random vector." Haldane helped the ISI develop in biometrics. In 1959, the institute was declared as an institute of national importance and a Deemed university. The methods pioneered at the institute are now used by the World Bank and the United Nations. As Nobel Prize-winning economist
Angus Deaton Sir Angus Stewart Deaton (born 19 October 1945) is a British economist and academic. Deaton is currently a Senior Scholar and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs Emeritus at the Princeton School of Public ...
and co-author Valerie Kozel wrote in 2005: "Where Mahalanobis and India led, the rest of the world has followed, so that today, most countries have a recent household income or expenditure survey. Most countries, can only envy India in its statistical capacity". Economists TN Srinivasan, Rohini Somanathan, Pranab Bardhan and another Nobel-winner Abhijit Banerjee have since argued that there is "no other instance of an entirely homegrown institution in a developing country becoming a world leader in a large field of general interest".


Contributions to statistics


Mahalanobis distance

Mahalanobis distance is one of the most widely used metrics to find how much a point diverges from a distribution, based on measurements in multiple dimensions. It is widely used in the field of cluster analysis and classification. It was first proposed by Mahalanobis in 1930 in context of his study on racial likeness. From a chance meeting with Nelson Annandale, then the director of the
Zoological Survey of India The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), founded on 1 July 1916 by Government of India Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, as premier Indian organisation in zoological research and studies to promote the survey, exploration and r ...
, at the 1920 Nagpur session of the Indian Science Congress led to Annandale asking him to analyse anthropometric measurements of Anglo-Indians in Calcutta. Mahalanobis had been influenced by the anthropometric studies published in the journal ''Biometrika'' and he chose to ask the questions on what factors influence the formation of European and Indian marriages. He wanted to examine if the Indian side came from any specific castes. He used the data collected by Annandale and the caste-specific measurements made by Herbert Risley to come up with the conclusion that the sample represented a mix of Europeans mainly with people from Bengal and Punjab but not with those from the Northwest Frontier Provinces or from Chhota Nagpur. He also concluded that the intermixture more frequently involved the higher castes than the lower ones. This analysis was described by his first scientific article in 1922. During the course of these studies he found a way of comparing and grouping populations using a multivariate distance measure. This measure, denoted "''D''2" and now
eponymous An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...
ly named
Mahalanobis distance The Mahalanobis distance is a measure of the distance between a point ''P'' and a distribution ''D'', introduced by P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. Mahalanobis's definition was prompted by the problem of identifying the similarities of skulls based ...
, is independent of measurement scale. Mahalanobis also took an interest in physical anthropology and in the accurate measurement of skull measurements for which he developed an instrument that he called the "profiloscope".


Sample survey

His most important contributions are related to large-scale sample surveys. He introduced the concept of pilot surveys and advocated the usefulness of sampling methods. Early surveys began between 1937 and 1944 and included topics such as consumer expenditure, tea-drinking habits, public opinion, crop acreage and plant disease.
Harold Hotelling Harold Hotelling (; September 29, 1895 – December 26, 1973) was an American mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist, known for Hotelling's law, Hotelling's lemma, and Hotelling's rule in economics, as well as Hotelling's ...
wrote: "No technique of random sample has, so far as I can find, been developed in the United States or elsewhere, which can compare in accuracy with that described by Professor Mahalanobis" and Sir R. A. Fisher commented that "The ISI has taken the lead in the original development of the technique of sample surveys, the most potent fact-finding process available to the administration". He introduced a method for estimating crop yields which involved statisticians sampling in the fields by cutting crops in a circle of diameter 4 feet. Others such as P. V. Sukhatme and V. G. Panse who began to work on crop surveys with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the
Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute The Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute is an institute under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) with the mandate for developing new techniques for the design of agricultural experiments as well as to analyze data ...
suggested that a survey system should make use of the existing administrative framework. The differences in opinion led to acrimony and there was little interaction between Mahalanobis and agricultural research in later years.


Later life

In later life, Mahalanobis was a member of the planning commission contributed prominently to newly independent India's five-year plans starting from the second. In the second five-year plan he emphasized industrialization on the basis of a two-sector model. His variant of Wassily Leontief's
Input-output model In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signal ...
, the Mahalanobis model, was employed in the Second Five Year Plan, which worked towards the rapid industrialisation of India and with other colleagues at his institute, he played a key role in the development of a statistical infrastructure. He encouraged a project to assess deindustrialization in India and correct some previous census methodology errors and entrusted this project to
Daniel Thorner Daniel Thorner (1915–1974) was an American-born economist known for his work on agricultural economics and Indian economic history.Easterlin, RA. 2004 ''The Reluctant Economist: Perspectives on Economics, Economic History and Demography'' Cambr ...
.Das, Gurucharan. (2000) ''India Unbound: The Social and Economic Revolution from Independence to the Global Information Age''. Anchor Books. p. 432 In the 1950s, Mahalanobis played a critical role in the campaign to bring India its first digital computers. Mahalanobis also had an abiding interest in cultural pursuits and served as secretary to
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
(about whom he would write in the ''Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia''), particularly during the latter's foreign travels, and also worked at his
Visva-Bharati University Visva-Bharati () is a public central university and an Institution of National Importance located in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, India. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it ''Visva-Bharati'', which means the communion of the ...
, for some time. He received India's second highest civilian award, the
Padma Vibhushan The Padma Vibhushan ("Lotus Decoration") is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without ...
from the
Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...
for his contribution to science and services to the country. Mahalanobis died on 28 June 1972, a day before his seventy-ninth birthday. Even at this age, he was still active doing research work and discharging his duties as the secretary and director of the
Indian Statistical Institute Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a higher education and research institute which is recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the 1959 act of the Indian parliament. It grew out of the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prasanta C ...
and as the honorary statistical advisor to the Cabinet of the Government of India.


Honours

* Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences (FASc, 1935) * Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy (FNA, 1935) * Officer of the
Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...
(Civil Division), 1942 New Year Honours list * Weldon Memorial Prize from the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
(1944) * Fellow of the
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
, London (1945)

'EC/1945/14'&dsqDb=Catalog" target="_blank" class="mw-redirect" title="Royal Society citation">Royal Society citation
/ref> * President of Indian Science Congress (1950) * Fellow of the
Econometric Society The Econometric Society is an international society of academic economists interested in applying statistical tools to their field. It is an independent organization with no connections to societies of professional mathematicians or statisticians. ...
, US (1951) * Fellow of the Pakistan Statistical Association (1952) * Honorary Fellow of the
Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...
, UK (1954) * Sir Deviprasad Sarvadhikari Gold Medal (1957) * Foreign member of the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...
(1958) * Honorary Fellow of
King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...
(1959) * Fellow of the
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 ...
(1961) * Durgaprasad Khaitan Gold Medal (1961) * Desikottam by Visva Bharati University (1961) *
Padma Vibhushan The Padma Vibhushan ("Lotus Decoration") is the second-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is given for "exceptional and distinguished service". All persons without ...
(1968) * Srinivasa Ramanujan Gold Medal (1968) The government of India decided in 2006 to celebrate his birthday, 29 June, as "National Statistical Day".Mohan, Rakesh 2007 Statistical system of India – some reflections. Reserve Bank of India, Department of Statistical Analysis and Computer Services, Mumbai, 29 June 2007
PDF
/ref> On the occasion of his 125th birth anniversary on 29 June 2018, Indian Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu released a commemorative coin at a programme at ISI, Kolkata.


In popular culture

* Mahalanobis appears in the 2015 movie ''
The Man Who Knew Infinity ''The Man Who Knew Infinity'' is a 2015 British biographical drama film about the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, based on the 1991 book of the same name by Robert Kanigel. The film stars Dev Patel as Srinivasa Ramanujan, a real-life ...
'' about the life of
Srinivasa Ramanujan Srinivasa Ramanujan (; born Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar, ; 22 December 188726 April 1920) was an Indian mathematician. Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, ...
. He is portrayed by
Shazad Latif Shazad Latif (born Iqbal Amin; 8 July 1988) is a British actor, who starred as Tariq Masood in the BBC TV series '' Spooks'', Clem Fandango on '' Toast of London'', and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in ''Penny Dreadful''. In 2017, he was cast as Chi ...
. * Mahalanobis was honoured with a
Google doodle A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...
on his 125th birthday on 29 June 2018.


See also

* List of Indian mathematicians


References


Further reading

* * *


External links


P.C. Mahalanobis
at the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
''
Biography from ISI Bangalore Website

ISI publication archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahalanobis, Prasanta Chandra 1893 births 1972 deaths Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Bengali Hindus Bengali scientists Brahmos Indian development economists Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Econometric Society Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy Foreign Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Founders of Indian schools and colleges 20th-century Indian economists Indian statisticians Indian institute directors People from Bikrampur Scientists from Kolkata Presidency University, Kolkata alumni Presidency University, Kolkata faculty Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan in literature & education People associated with Santiniketan Principals of Presidency University, Kolkata University of Calcutta alumni University of Calcutta faculty Members of the Planning Commission of India 20th-century Indian mathematicians Officers of the Order of the British Empire