J W Tukey (1915-2000)
John Tukey was amongst many things a mathematician, a statistician, an academic and an innovator. His output was prodigious and his achievements include:
- Inventing the box-plot (a development of the range plot devised by Mary Eleanor Spear)
- Coining the term 'bit, now ubiquitous in computing. It is possible he also invented the term 'software'
- Devising the Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm
- Devising Tukey's range test, a development of the t-test
- Devising the Tukey lambda distribution
- Devising Tukey's test of additivity
- Devising the Teichmüller–Tukey lemma
Tukey was the driving force behind the development of Exploratory Data Analysis, publishing the landmark book of that name in 1977. This provides a set of ideas and techniques
There is a YouTube clip of James Cooley and John Tukey talking about FFT at a 1992 conference
There is a YouTube clip of John Tukey explaining the exploration of multidimensional data using the PRIM-9 display system
Notable quotes from Tukey:
The data may not contain the answer. The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.
Sunset salvo. The American Statistician 40 (1). 1986 http://www.jstor.org/pss/2683137
Finding the question is often more important than finding the answer.
Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than an exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.
The future of data analysis.
Annals of Mathematical Statistics 33 (1) p 13. 1962
The tool that is so dull that you cannot cut yourself on it is not likely to be sharp enough to be either useful or helpful.
The Technical Tools of Statistics. The American Statistician 34 (1). https://www.jstor.org/stable/2682374
