Leonard Jimmie Savage

Leonard Jimmie Savage (born Leonard Ogashevitz; 20 November 1917 – 1 November 1971) was an American mathematician and statistician.

Quotes

• My dissertation for the Ph.D. degree at the University of Michigan was on applications of vectorial methods to metric geometry (in the sense of the Menger school), especially with a view to the merging of metric geometry in that sense with differential geometry. Professor S B Myers at the University of Michigan sponsored my dissertation, but I was particularly close to R L Wilder there.
  • Leonard Jimmie Savage, cited in: W.A. Wallis, "Leonard Jimmie Savage 1917-1971," in E Shils (ed.), Remembering the University of Chicago: teachers, scientists, and scholars. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991), 436-451; Quoted in: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson, "Leonard Jimmie Savage," at history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk, November 2010.

• For a person who wants to do original, realistic, and critical work in statistics there is no atmosphere anywhere in the world today to compare with this Department.
  • Leonard Jimmie Savage, (1960) cited in: W.A. Wallis, "Leonard Jimmie Savage 1917-1971," in E Shils (ed.), Remembering the University of Chicago: teachers, scientists, and scholars. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991), 436-451; Quoted in: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson (2010).
  • Letter to Chicago Department before taking up a professorship at the University of Michigan.

• [The George E. P. Box paper Fitting empirical data (1960) is] a mature exposition of an important branch of statistics, to which the author has made great contributions. One feature of particular interest is practical discussion of genuinely nonlinear fitting problems and their solution with the help of tact and a special, publicly available, IBM-704 program. Another is insightful comments on the role of prior distributions in statistics.
  • Leonard Jimmie Savage in 1960s; cited in: JOC/EFR (2006) "George Edward Pelham Box" at history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk, Nov 2006.

Quotes about Leonard Jimmie Savage

• [Leonard Jimmie Savage is] one of the few people I have met whom I would unhesitatingly call a genius.
  • Milton Friedman, in: Friedman, Milton; Friedman, Rose (1998). Two Lucky People: Memoirs. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 146.

• R. A. Fisher, J. Neyman, R. von Mises, W. Feller, and L. J. Savage denied vehemently that probability theory is an extension of logic, and accused Laplace and Jeffreys of committing metaphysical nonsense for thinking that it is.
  • E. T. Jaynes; G. Larry Bretthorst (10 April 2003). Probability Theory: The Logic of Science. Cambridge University Press. p. 293. ISBN 978-0-521-59271-0. 

• It was only when L. J. Savage arrived on the scene, and championed the work of Ramsey and de Finetti that the work of these two pioneers in subjective probability first received serious philosophical attention.
  • S. L. Zabell (6 June 2005). Symmetry and Its Discontents: Essays on the History of Inductive Probability. Cambridge University Press. p. 134. ISBN 978-0-521-44470-5.