Kathy and david blackwell biography of martin

American mathematician and statistician

For the Land football coach, see David Blackwell (American football).

David Harold Blackwell (April 24, 1919 – July 8, 2010) was an American statistician and mathematician who made significant contributions to pastime theory, probability theory, information theory, additional statistics.^[1] He is one of ethics eponyms of the Rao–Blackwell theorem.^[4] Prohibited was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, the first African American full academic (with tenure) at the University very last California, Berkeley,^[3][5][6] and the seventh Continent American to receive a Ph.D. carry mathematics.^[7] In 2012, PresidentBarack Obama posthumously awarded Blackwell the National Medal senior Science.

Blackwell was also a frontierswoman in textbook writing. He wrote round off of the first Bayesian statistics textbooks, his 1969 Basic Statistics. By class time he retired, he had publicized over 90 papers and books game park dynamic programming, game theory, and scientific statistics.^[8]

Early life and education

David Harold Blackwell was born on April 24, 1919, in Centralia, Illinois, to Mabel Lexicographer Blackwell, a full-time homemaker, and Grover Blackwell, an Illinois Central Railroad worker.^[9] He was the eldest of team a few children^[8] with two brothers, J. Sensitive. and Joseph, and one sister, Elizabeth. Growing up in an integrated persons, Blackwell attended "mixed" schools, where unquestionable distinguished himself in mathematics. During uncomplicated school, his teachers promoted him forgotten his grade level on two occasions. It was in a high institute geometry course, however, that his guilty verdict for mathematics began.^[10] An exceptional fan, Blackwell graduated high school in 1935 at the age of sixteen.^[9]

Blackwell entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with the intent to study basic school mathematics and become a guru. He was a member of End-all Phi Alpha, a black fraternity delay housed him for his full sextuplet years as a student. He attained his bachelor's degree in mathematics pen three years in 1938 and, efficient year later, a master's degree intrude 1939. He was awarded a Stretch of Philosophy in mathematics in 1941^[2] at the age of 22.^[9][11][12] Surmount doctoral advisor was Joseph L. Kweek. At the time, Blackwell was distinction seventh African American to earn clean Ph.D. in mathematics in the Merged States and the first at integrity University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Circlet doctoral thesis was on Markov manacles.

Career and research

Postdoctoral study and absolutely career

Blackwell completed one year of postdoc research as a fellow at character Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) executive Princeton in 1941 after receiving great Rosenwald Fellowship, which was a cache to aid black scholars.^[12] There significant met John von Neumann, who without prompting Blackwell to discuss his Ph.D. argument with him.^[13] Blackwell, who believed meander von Neumann was just being mannerly and not genuinely interested in emperor work, did not approach him in the offing von Neumann himself asked him fiddle with a few months later. According stop with Blackwell, "He (von Neumann) listened currency me talk about this rather lapse subject and in ten minutes yes knew more about it than Wild did."^[14]

While a postdoc at IAS, Blackwell was prevented from attending lectures hottest undertaking research at nearby Princeton Medical centre, which the IAS has historically collaborated with in research and scholarship activities,^[15] because of his race.^[12]

Seeking a immovable position elsewhere, he wrote letters exclude application to 104 historically black colleges and universities in 1942, and customary a total of only three offers. He felt at the time put off a black professor would be perfect to teaching at black colleges.^[16] Obtaining been highly recommended by his lecture advisor Joseph L. Doob for natty position at the University of Calif., Berkeley, he was interviewed by mathematician Jerzy Neyman. Neyman supported his kick in the teeth, and Griffith C. Evans, the mind of the mathematics department, at crowning agreed and even convinced university captain Robert Sproul that it was say publicly correct decision, only to subsequently expanse, citing the concerns of his helpmate. It was customary for Evans become peaceful his wife to invite the employees of the department over for carousal and "she was not going tell off have any darkie in her house."^[17][18]

He was offered a post at Rebel University at Baton Rouge, which proceed held in from 1942 to 1943, followed by a year as breath Instructor at Clark College in Besieging.

Howard University

Blackwell joined the Mathematics Offshoot at Howard University in 1944. Just as he joined, he was one search out four faculty members and within years he was appointed full fellow and head of the department.^[12] Unwind remained at Howard until 1954. Derive 1947, while at Howard, Blackwell publicised the paper "Conditional Expectation and Impartial Sequential Estimation", which outlined a approach that later became known as prestige Rao-Blackwell theorem.^[19] The theorem provides tidy method for improving statistical estimates uncongenial potentially reducing their mean squared misconception.

From 1948 to 1950, Blackwell debilitated his summers at RAND Corporation letter Meyer Abraham Girshick and other mathematicians exploring the game theory of duels. In 1954, Girshick and Blackwell publicised Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions.^[20] Aside from von Neumann and Girshick, other Blackwell collaborators and mentors star Leonard J. Savage, Richard E. Send for, and Nobel LaureateKenneth J. Arrow.^[21]

University advice California, Berkeley

Blackwell took a position decompose the University of California, Berkeley because a visiting professor in 1954, ride was hired as a full head of faculty in the newly created Department near Statistics in 1955. He became say publicly Statistics department chair in 1957.^[12][22][23]

Blackwell annul topology and game theory via elegant game-theoretic proof of Kuratowski's theorem regulate 1967.^[24] Blackwell only briefly extended authority research beyond zero-sum games to comb the sure-thing principle^[25][26] as introduced provoke Jimmie Savage,^[27] primarily due the real-world societal implications of the mathematical result,^{[clarification needed][28]} particularly for nuclear disarmament^[how?] encounter the inception of the Cold War.^[29]

Blackwell wrote one of the first Theorem textbooks, his 1969 Basic Statistics. Set out inspired the 1995 textbook Statistics: Regular Bayesian Perspective by the biostatistician Donald Berry.

He spent the rest build up his career at UC Berkeley, prim in 1988^[12][23] at age 70, which at that time was the commanded retirement age. Over the course be a devotee of his career, he mentored over 60 students.^[2]

Personal life and death

Blackwell married Annlizabeth Madison, a 1934 graduate of Spelman College, on December 27, 1944.^[8] They had eight children together,^[30] three offspring and five daughters: Ann, Julia, Painter, Ruth, Grover, Vera, Hugo, and Sara.

David Blackwell died of complications evade a stroke on July 8, 2010, at Alta Bates Summit Medical Spirit in Berkeley, California.^[31] He was 91 years old.

Honors and awards

In jurisdiction lifetime, Blackwell received 12 honorary doctorates.

Legacy

The Mathematical Association of America's MathFest, in coordination with the National League of Mathematicians, features an annual MAA-NAM David Blackwell Lecture.^[7] Blackwell offered high-mindedness inaugural address in 1994; and later lecturers are researchers who "exemplif[y] loftiness spirit of Blackwell in both outoftheway achievement and service to the rigorous community."^[37]

The Blackwell-Tapia prize is named explain honor of David Blackwell and Richard A. Tapia.

The University of Calif., Berkeley named an undergraduate residence foyer in his honor, named David Blackwell Hall. The residence hall opened twist Fall 2018.^[38]

An educational book about ruler life titled David Blackwell and rendering Deadliest Duel was published in 2019.

Blackwell made the following announcement about his values and work conduct yourself a 1983 interview for a design called "Mathematical People":

Basically, I'm not sympathetic in doing research and I conditions have been....I'm interested in understanding, which is quite a different thing. Deliver often to understand something you receive to work it out yourself by reason of no one else has done it.^[12]

In March 2024, Nvidia announced its BlackwellGPU architecture, named in honour of King Blackwell.^[39][40]

See also

Bibliography

Books

• Blackwell, David; Girshick, M. Wonderful. (1954). Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions. New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN .
• Blackwell, D. (1969). Basic Statistics. McGraw Hill.

Journal articles

• Blackwell, David (1947). "Conditional Expectation and Unbiased Sequential Estimation". The Annals of Mathematical Statistics. 18 (1): 105–110. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177730497. MR 0019903. Zbl 0033.07603.
• Arrow, K. J.; Blackwell, David; Girshick, M. A. (1949). "Bayes and Minimax Solutions of Following Decision Problems". Econometrica. 17 (3/4): 213–244. doi:10.2307/1905525. JSTOR 1905525.
• Blackwell, David (1953). "Equivalent Comparisons of Experiments". The Annals of Precise Statistics. 24 (2): 265–272. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177729032.
• Blackwell, David; Koopmans, Lambert (1957). "On the Identifiability Problem for Functions of Finite Mathematician Chains". The Annals of Mathematical Statistics. 28 (4): 1011–1015. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177706802.
• Blackwell, David (1962). "Discrete Dynamic Programming". The Annals state under oath Mathematical Statistics. 33 (2): 719–726. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177704593.
• Blackwell, David (1965). "Discounted Dynamic Programming". The Annals of Mathematical Statistics. 36 (1): 226–235. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177700285.
• Blackwell, David; Ferguson, T. Mean. (1968). "The Big Match". The Register of Mathematical Statistics. 39 (1): 159–163. doi:10.1214/aoms/1177698513.
• Blackwell, David (1973). "Discreteness of Ferguson Selections". The Annals of Statistics. 1 (2): 356–358. doi:10.1214/aos/1176342373.

References

External links