A t-test is an analysis of two populations means through the use of statistical examination; a t-test with

two samples is commonly used with small sample sizes, testing the difference between the samples when
the variances of two normal distributions are not known.
A t-test looks at the t-statistic, the t-distribution and degrees of freedom to determine the probability of
difference between populations; the test statistic in the test is known as the t-statistic. To conduct a test
with three or more variables, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) must be used.
William Sealy Gosset may be unrecognizable. His pseudonym Student, however, reveals him as one of the
most prominent statisticians in history. Students t-test is an important part of every introductory statistics
course, making everyone from single-statistics-course students to those who have devoted their lives to
the discipline familiar with his work.
Gosset was born in Canterbury in 1876, and studied chemistry and mathematics at New College, Oxford.
After university, William was hired by Arthur Guinness, Son & Co. as a brewer at the St. James' Gate
brewery in Dublin, where he worked from 1899 until 1935. At the time, Guinness became interested in
hiring scientists who could apply their skills to the brewing process, and Gosset did not disappoint. In 1904,
he wrote an internal report titled The Application of the Law of Error to the work of the Brewery where he
made a case for introducing statistical methodologies to the brewing industry (Pearson, 1939). In fact,
Gossets first paper was an application of the Poisson distribution to yeast counts (Student, 1907).
William Sealy Gosset
In the conclusion of Gossets report, he suggested consulting a mathematical physicist to address some
of the more theoretical concerns. In 1906, he took a leave of absence from the brewery to study in the
Biometric Lab of Karl Pearson. During this time, Gosset learned about distributional theory and the
correlation coefficient. However, the large-sample theory that was made available to Gosset was not
entirely practical to his work at the brewery; he seldom had the appropriately large sample sizes
available to satisfy the assumptions of these methods.
This lack of small-sample methodology led to Gossets most famous work in which he summarized the first

four moments of the sample variance

and noticed their striking similarity to a Pearson
Type III curve (Student, 1908a). His paper contains the derivation of the t-test (though not in its current
form), some empirical work, examples and a statistical table for general use. However, the t-test would not
see much use outside of his own brewery for many years.
Eventually, a young statistician named Ronald Fisher wrote to Gosset about the denominator of his sample
variance; why was it not (n-1)? When Gosset asked Pearson about this, Pearson replied that n or (n-1)
means little in large samples but only to naughty brewers that take n so small that the difference is not
of the order of probable error (Pearson, 1939). This initial exchange led to a lifelong friendship between
Gosset and Fisher. Fisher thought highly of Gossets work and eventually reparameterized Gossets
derivation into the familiar tdistribution with corresponding degrees of freedom we know today. It is also
perhaps, through Fishers insistence and promotion of the work, that the method found itself in more
general use outside of the brewery.
Gosset wrote a companion manuscript to his 1908 paper for the correlation coefficient (Student, 1908b),
made contributions to the design and analysis of agricultural experiments, and later published papers in
support of the theory of natural selection. In 1935, he moved to London to be head brewer at the new
Guinness Park Royal brewery. He died in 1937 at the age of 61, survived by his wife, three children and one
grandson. He published 22 manuscripts.
How did William Sealy Gosset become known as Student?
Perhaps out of fear of losing a competitive advantage, the brewery enforced a rule that forbade its
scientists from publishing their research. Gosset argued that his work would be of no benefit to other
brewers and was finally allowed to publish using a pseudonym Student to prevent other employees
from noticing. It is interesting to note that two other chemists from the brewery published statistical work
under assumed names: Sophister andMathetes (Hotelling, 1930).
From the manuscripts listed below, it is possible to develop a very accurate picture of William Sealy
Gosset. He was well-liked and respected by several notable statisticians including R.A. Fisher, Karl and
Egon Pearson (Fisher, 1939; Pearson, 1939). He was a modest man, downplaying the importance of his
work to the point where he declared Fisher would have discovered it all anyway (Boland, 1984). There is
an interesting account of Gosset and Fishers relationship (not always free from statistical argument)
described through the latters second eldest daughter (Box, 1981). McMullen, a former brewery coworker

who marveled at Gossets many accomplishments, wrote a touching piece that describes Gossets
personality and many interests in gardening, boat-building , biking, golfing, sailing and fishing (1939).
Many of the aforementioned articles contain excerpts from Gossets letters to and from Fisher and Karl
Pearson and illustrate his good sense of humor (Boland, 1984; Box, 1981; Pearson, 1939).
If you have further interest in Gossets life and work, I recommend that you read one or more of the
references listed below. In particular, Bolands (1984) manuscript has a wonderful graphic of overlapping
timelines that depict major career highlights of Gosset, Fisher and Karl Pearson.
So this month, we celebrate -- and raise a pint to -- William Sealy Gosset, aka Student: statistician,
chemist, gardener and naughty brewer.