Author	Heyde, C. C. author
Title	I. J. Bienaymรฉ [electronic resource] : Statistical Theory Anticipated / by C. C. Heyde, E. Seneta
Imprint	New York, NY : Springer New York : Imprint: Springer, 1977
Connect to	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-9469-3
Descript	172 p. 1 illus. online resource

Our interest in 1. J. Bienayme was kindled by the discovery of his paper of 1845 on simple branching processes as a model for extinction of family names. In this work he announced the key criticality theorem 28 years before it was rediscovered in incomplete form by Galton and Watson (after whom the process was subsequently and erroneously named). Bienayme was not an obscure figure in his time and he achieved a position of some eminence both as a civil servant and as an Academician. However, his is no longer widely known. There has been some recognition of his name work on least squares, and a gradually fading attribution in connection with the (Bienayme-) Chebyshev inequality, but little more. In fact, he made substantial contributions to most of the significant problems of probability and statistics which were of contemporary interest, and interacted with the major figures of the period. We have, over a period of years, collected his traceable scientific work and many interesting features have come to light. The present monograph has resulted from an attempt to describe his work in its historical context. Earlier progress reports have appeared in Heyde and Seneta (1972, to be reprinted in Studies in the History of Probability and Statistics, Volume 2, Griffin, London; 1975; 1976)

1. Historical background -- 1.1. Introduction -- 1.2. A historical prelude -- 1.3. Biography -- 1.4. Academic background and contemporaries -- 1.5. Bienaymรฉ in the literature -- 1.6. The Sociรฉtรฉ Philomatique and the journal Lโ{128}{153}Institut -- 2. Demography and social statistics -- 2.1. Introduction -- 2.2. Infant mortality and birth statistics -- 2.3. Life tables -- 2.4. Probability and the law -- 2.5. Insurance and retirement funds -- 3. Homogeneity and stability of statistical trials -- 3.1. Introduction -- 3.2. Varieties of heterogeneity -- 3.3. Bienaymรฉ and Poissonโ{128}{153}s Law of Large Numbers -- 3.4. Dispersion theory -- 3.5. Bienaymรฉโ{128}{153}s test -- 4. Linear least squares -- 4.1. Introduction -- 4.2. Legendre, Gauss, and Laplace -- 4.3. Bienaymรฉโ{128}{153}s contribution -- 4.4. Cauchyโ{128}{153}s role in interpolation theory -- 4.5. Consequences -- 4.6. Bienaymรฉ and Cauchy on probabilistic least squares -- 4.7. Cauchy continues -- 5. Other probability and statistics -- 5.1. Introduction -- 5.2. A Limit theorem in a Bayesian setting -- 5.3. Medical statistics -- 5.4. The Law of Averages -- 5.5. Electoral representation -- 5.6. The concept of sufficiency -- 5.7. A general inequality -- 5.8. A historical note on Pascal -- 5.9. The simple branching process -- 5.10. The Bienaymรฉ-Chebyshev Inequality -- 5.11. A test for randomness -- 6. Miscellaneous writings -- 6.1. A perpetual calendar -- 6.2. The alignment of houses -- 6.3. The Montyon Prize reports -- Bienaymรฉโ{128}{153}s publications -- Name index