An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E.P.Box

295 Pages·2013·5.17 MB·English

by  George E. P. Box

An Accidental
Statistician
An Accidental
Statistician
The Life and Memories
of George E.P.Box
George E.P. Box
ProfessorEmeritus
DepartmentofStatistics
UniversityofMadison—Wisconsin
Madison,Wisconsin
With a little help from my friend, Judith L. Allen
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData:
Box,GeorgeE.P.
Anaccidentalstatistician:thelifeandmemoriesofGeorgeE.P.Box/GeorgeE.P.Box.
pagescm
Includesindex.
ISBN978-1-118-40088-3(cloth)
1.Box,GeorgeE.P.2.Statisticians–UnitedStates–Biography.I.Title.
QA276.157.B69A32013
519.5092–dc23
[B]
2012040251
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
10987654321
Thisbookisdedicatedtomystudents,withwhom
itwasmyprivilegetowork,andwhobecamemyfriends.
Contents
Foreword xi
SecondForeword xv
Preface xix
Acknowledgments xxi
FromThePublisher xxiii
1 EarlyYears 1
‘‘WhointheworldamI?Ah,that’sthegreatpuzzle.’’
2 ArmyLife 19
‘‘Contrarywise,ifitwasso,itmightbe:andifitwereso,
itwouldbe:butasitisn’t,itain’t.That’slogic.’’
3 ICIandtheStatisticalMethodsPanel 44
‘‘Canyouanswerusefulquestions?’’
4 George Barnard 53
‘‘WhenIuseaword. . . itmeansjustwhatIchooseittomean–neither
morenorless.’’
5 AnInvitationtotheUnitedStates 63
‘‘Thetimehascome,‘thewalrussaid,’totalkofmanythings.
Ofshoesandshipsandsealingwax,ofcabbagesandkings.’’
6 Princeton 78
‘‘Ah!Thenyourswasn’tareallygoodschool.’’
7 ANew LifeinMadison 94
‘‘Diggingforapples,yourhonor!’’
vii
viii
Contents
8 TimeSeries 124
‘‘Whatdoyouknowaboutthisbusiness?’’
9 George TiaoandtheBayesBook 139
‘‘Itgetseasierfurtheron.’’
10 GrowingUp(HelenandHarry) 144
‘‘Thereare364dayswhenyoumightgetunbirthdaypresents,
andonly1forbirthdaypresents,youknow.’’
11 Fisher—Father andSon 151
‘‘Ionlyhopetheboatwon’ttippleover!’’
12 BillHunterandSomeIdeasonExperimental
Design 157
‘‘TheregoesBill!’’
13 TheQualityMovement 181
‘‘Theraceisover!. . . ‘Everybodyhaswonandallmusthaveprizes.’’’
14 AdventureswithClaire 197
‘‘Whatelsehadyoutolearn?’’‘‘Well,therewasMystery.’’
15 TheManySidesofMac 209
‘‘There’snothinglikeeatinghaywhenyou’refeelingfaint.’’
16 LifeinEngland 218
‘‘Whatmattersishowfarwego?Thereisanothershore,youknow,
upontheotherside.’’
17 JourneystoScandinavia 224
‘‘Whatsortofpeoplelivehere?’’
18 ASecondHomeinSpain 228
‘‘Iknowsomethinginterestingissuretohappen.’’
19 TheRoyalSocietyofLondon 245
ix
Contents
20 Conclusion 247
21 Memories 248
Index 265
Foreword
V
irginia Woolf wrote about a character with a mind that ‘‘kept
throwing up from its depths, scenes, and names, and sayings, and
memories and ideas, like a fountain spurting over.’’ George Box is the
embodiment of that active mind. Dinner with George is a spurting of
stories, poems, songs, and anecdotes about his work and his friends. An
Accidental Statistician jumps you into that fountain of ideas. It is great
fun even if books about statistics and science are normally absent from
yourreadinglist.
No doubt many readers think, as I once did, that the subject is
difficult and dull. Here we have a charming and colorful storyteller who
quotesYogiBerrainadiscussionontheanalysisofvariance;hasMurphy,
of Murphy’s Law fame, ringing the alarm when there is an opportunity
to make things better; and explains an experiment with critical variables
named ‘‘banging’’ and ‘‘gooeyness.’’ There are stories about composite
designs, time-series forecasting, Evolutionary Operation, intervention
analysis, and so on, but they are not mathematical, and most include
personal anecdotes about people who were involved in their invention
and original application. You learn about statistics and science and,
simultaneously, meet a literal Who’s Who of statisticians and scientists,
andtheQueenofEnglandaswell.
ImetGeorgeBoxin1968atthelong-runninghitshowthathecalled
‘‘The Monday Night Beer Session,’’ an informal discussion group that
met in the basement of his house. I was taking Bill Hunter’s course in
nonlinear model building. Bill suggested that I should go and talk about
someresearchweweredoing.Theideaofdiscussingamodelingproblem
with the renowned Professor Box was unsettling. Bill said it would be
good because George liked engineers. Bill and several of the Monday
Nighters were chemical engineers, and George’s early partnership with
Olaf Hougen, then Chair of Chemical Engineering at Wisconsin, was a
creativeforceintheearlydaysofthenewlyformedStatisticsDepartment.
I tightened my belt and dropped in one night, sitting in the back and
xi
xii
Foreword
wonderingwhetherIdaredtakeabeer(Fauerbachbrand,anappropriate
choice for doing statistics because no two cases were alike). I attended
a great many sessions over almost 30 years, during which hundreds of
Monday Nighters got to watch George execute an exquisite interplay of
questions, quick tutorials, practical suggestions, and encouragement for
anyonewhohadaproblemandwantedtousestatistics.Noproblemwas
too small, and no problem was too difficult. The output from George
wasalwayshelpfulandfriendlyadvice,neverdiscouragement.Weekafter
week we observed the cycle of discovery and iterative experimentation.
Wesawrealexamplesthat,‘‘Allmodelsarewrong,butsomeareuseful.’’
Wesawhowstatisticsisacatalystforscientificmethod,andhowscientific
problemscatalyzeideasfordoingstatistics.Whatatreat.
My business is water quality engineering. One night I wanted to
discuss a problem that involved a measurement called the Biochemical
OxygenDemand(BOD).Georgeaskedwhetheritwouldbeallrightfor
him to explain this BOD test. He gave as good an explanation as I ever
heard.Iaskedhowhehappenedtoknowthatandlearnedthatatage16,
hetookajobasanassistantchemistinasewagetreatmentplant.Oneyear
beforeIwasborn,in1939,atage19,hepublishedapaperaboutoxygen
demand in the activated sludge wastewater treatment process, which at
the time was new and poorly understood. George’s paper can stand with
papers on the subject written by some famous Wisconsin engineers who
worked on the problem at about the same time. In the 1990s, 55 years
later, George and I worked on forecasting the dynamics of activated
sludge process performance using multivariate nonstationary time series.
Imaginethatfromaworld-famousstatisticianwhowasoneoftheearliest
researchersonthiswidelyusedwastewatertreatmentprocess.
GeorgeandIhaveonebitofunfinishedpieceofbusiness.A20-foot-
tall civil war soldier guards the stone arch entrance to Fort Randall Park,
which is next to the engineering building and the statistics building at
the University of Wisconsin—Madison. George had thought for some
time that the soldier should have a medal. In 1993, we found a suitable
brass medal in a sidewalk stall near Hyde Park, London, but our plan
to hang it around the soldier’s neck was never fulfilled. I now believe
that the medal should stay with George as an award of merit for memoir
writing.Hedeservesit.(Andwetwooldfriendsdonothavetoclimbthe
soldier.)
xiii
Foreword
Last night, May 10, 2012, my wife and I had dinner with George
and Claire at their house in Shorewood Hills. He said, ‘‘The memoir is
finished.’’Iasked,‘‘What’syournextproject.It’shardtopictureyounot
doing some writing every day.’’ He answered, ‘‘I ’m thinking of a paper
aboutFisher’sideaonmultiplicative effectsinexperiments.’’
An Accidental Statistician is finished, but apparently George is not.
Thatisgoodnews.Thankyou,George.
P.MacBerthouex
EmeritusProfessor
UniversityofWisconsin