CONTENTS

• Name : keyur jain

• Std : 11th A
• Subject : Statistics
• Roll no. : 36
KARL PEARSON
 KARL PEARSON
• Born : 27 March 1857 islington, London, England.
• Died : 27 April 1936 (aged 79) coldharbour, surrey, England.
• Residence : England.
• Nationality : British.
• Alma mater : university of Cambridge.
• Awards : drawin medal (1898).
 BIOGRAPHY
• Pearson was born in Islington, London to William pearson qc of inner temple, and his
wife fanny, and two siblings, Arthur and amy. Pearson was educated privately at
university college school, after which he went to king’s college, Cambridge in 1876 to
study mathematics, graduating in 1879 as third wrangler in mathematical tripos.

• Than he travelled to Germany to study physics at university of Heidelberg under G H

qincke and metaphysics under kuno fischer. He next visited the university of berlin,
where he attended the lectures of physiologist emil du bois-reymond on drawinism.

• Pearson was offered a germanics post at kings college, Cambridge comparing

Cambridge students to those he knew from Germany, karl found german students
inathletic and weak. He wrote his mother, “I used to think athletics and sport was
overestimated at Cambridge, but now I think it cannot be too highly valued.
 BIOGRAPHY
• On returning to England in 1880, pearson first went to Cambridge: back in
Cambridge, I worked in engineering shops, but drew up the schedule in mittel and
althochdeutsch for the medieval language tripos.
• In his first book, the new werther, pearson gives a clear indication of why he
studied so many diverse subjects: I rush from science to philosophy, and from
philosophy to our old friends the poets; and then, over-wearied by too much
idealism, I fancy I become practical in returning to science.
• Pearson then returned to London to study law, emulating his father. Quoting
pearson’s own account: coming to London, I read in chambers in Lincoln’s inn,
drew up bills of sale, and was called to bar, but varied legal studies by lecturing on
heat at barnes, on martin luther at hampstead, and on lassalle and marx on sundays
at revolutionary clubs around soho.
 BIOGRAPHY
• His next career move was to the inner temple, where he read law until 1881. after this, he returned to
mathematics, deputizing for mathematics professor king’s college, London 1881 and for professor at university
college, London in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed to the goldsmid chair of applied mathematics and
mechanics at university college, London.

• In 1890 pearson married maria sharpe. The couple had three children: Sigrid loetitia pearson, Helga sharpe
parson, and egon pearson, who became a statistical himself and succeeded his father as head of applied
statistics department at university college. Maria died in 1928 and 1929 karl married Victoria child, a
co-worker at biometric laboratory. He and his family lived at 7 well road in hampstead, now marked with
ablue plaque.

• Karl pearson was a major contribution to early development of statistics. His most famous contribution is the
pearson’s chi-square test. In 1911 he founded the world’s first university statistics department at university
college, London. He applied statistics to biological problems of heredity and evolution. These papers contain
contributions to regression analysis, the correlation coefficient and include chi-sqare test of statistical
significance. He coined the term ‘standard deviation’ in 1893. his work was influenced by work of edgeworth
and in turn influenced the work of yule. He was a co-founder of the statistics journal biometrika.
 EINSTEIN AND PEARSON’S WORK
• When 23 year’s old albert Einstein started Olympia academy study group in 1902, while his two
younger friends, Maurice solovine habicht, his first reading suggestion was pearson’s the grammer
of science this book covered several themes that were later to become part of theories of Einstein
and other scientists. Irreversibility of natural process, he claimed is a purely relative conception. An
observer who travels at exact velocity of light would see an eternal now, or an absence of motion.
He spectulated that an observer who travelled faster than light would see time reversal, similar to a
cinema film being run backwards.

• Pearson’s relatively was based on idealism, in sense of ideas or pictures in a mind. “there are many
signs,” he wrote, “that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the
crude materialism of older physicists.” further he stated, “science is in reality a classification and
analysis of contents of mind” “in truth, the field of science is more cosciousness than an external
world.”
 POLITICS AND EUGENICS
• A eugenicist who applied his social drawinism to entire nations, pearson saw war against “inferior
races” as a logical implication of theory of evolution. “my view- and I think it may be called the
scientific view of a nation, “he wrote, “is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of
external efficiency by way of war with inferior races. He reasoned that, if august weismann’s
theory of germ plasm is correct, the nation is wasting money when it tries to improve people who
come from poor stock.

• “history shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been
produced, namely, struggle of race with race, and survival of physically and mentally fitter race. If
you want to know whether lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear only course is to
leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then struggle for existence between
individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by physical selection due
to particular climate on which probably so much of Aryan’s success depended.
 CONTRIBUTION TO BIOMETRICS
• Karl pearson was important in founding of school of biometrics, which was a competing theory to
describe evolution and population inheritance at turn of 20th century. His series of eighteen papers,
“mathematical contributions to theory of evolution” established as founder of biometrical school for
inheritance. In fact, pearson devoted much time during 1893 to 1904 to developing statistical
techniques for biometry. These techniques, which are widely used today for statistical analysis,
include chi-squared test, standard deviation and correlation and regression coefficients.

• Karl pearson was a follower of galton, and although two different in some respects, pearson used a
substantial amount of francis galton’s statistical concepts in his formulation of biometrical school
for inheritance, such as law of regression.

• For pearson, theory of evolution was not intended to identify a biological mechanism that explained
patterns of inheritance, whereas mendelian’s postulated gene as mechanism for inheritance. Pearson
criticized biologists who did not focus on statistical validity of their theories, stating that “before we
can accept as a factor we must have not only shown its possibility but if possible have demonstrated
its quantitative ability”