George Box | |
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| Born | (1919-10-18)18 October 1919 Gravesend, Kent, England |
| Died | 28 March 2013(2013-03-28) (aged 93) |
| Alma mater | University College London |
| Known for | |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Statistics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Departures from Independence and Homoskedasticity in the Analysis of Variance and Related Statistical Analysis (1953) |
| Doctoral advisor | |
| Doctoral students | John F. MacGregor[2] Greta M. Ljung George C. Tiao |
George Edward Pelham BoxFRS[1] (18 October 1919 – 28 March 2013) was a British statistician, who worked in the areas ofquality control,time-series analysis,design of experiments, andBayesian inference. He has been called "one of the great statistical minds of the 20th century". He is famous for the quote "All models are wrong but some are useful".[3][4][5][6]
He was born inGravesend, Kent, England. Upon entering university he began to studychemistry, but was called up for service before finishing. DuringWorld War II, he performed experiments for theBritish Army exposing small animals to poison gas. To analyze the results of his experiments, he taught himself statistics from available texts. After the war, he enrolled atUniversity College London and obtained a bachelor's degree in mathematics and statistics. He received aPhD from theUniversity of London in 1953, under the supervision ofEgon Pearson andHO Hartley.[2][7]
From 1948 to 1956, Box worked as a statistician forImperial Chemical Industries (ICI). While at ICI, he took a leave of absence for a year and served as a visiting professor atNorth Carolina State University at Raleigh. He later went toPrinceton University where he served as Director of the Statistical Research Group.
In 1960, Box moved to theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison to create the Department of Statistics. In 1980, he was named Vilas Research Professor of Statistics, which is the highest honor given to a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty.[8] Box and Bill Hunter co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1985.[9] Box officially retired in 1992, becoming anemeritus professor.[10]
Box published books includingStatistics for Experimenters (2nd ed., 2005),Time Series Analysis: Forecasting and Control (4th ed., 2008, withGwilym Jenkins and Gregory C. Reinsel) andBayesian Inference in Statistical Analysis. (1973, withGeorge C. Tiao).
Box served as president of theAmerican Statistical Association in 1978 and of theInstitute of Mathematical Statistics in 1979. He received theShewhart Medal from theAmerican Society for Quality Control in 1968, theWilks Memorial Award from theAmerican Statistical Association in 1972, theR. A. Fisher Lectureship in 1974, and theGuy Medal in Gold from theRoyal Statistical Society in 1993. Box was elected a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1985.[1]
His name is associated with results in statistics such asBox–Jenkins models,Box–Cox transformations,Box–Behnken designs, and others. Additionally, Box famously wrote, in various books and papers, that "all models are wrong, but some are useful".[11][12][13]
Box was married three times. In 1945, he married Jessie Ward, a sergeant in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. The two later divorced.[14][1] He then married Joan Fisher, daughter of the British statisticianRonald Fisher. The two later collaborated on a biography of Ronald Fisher, published in 1978.[15] After Fisher and Box divorced, he married Claire Louise Quist in 1985.[1]
Box died on 28 March 2013. He was 93 years old.[1][16]
