John Nelder facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Ashworth Nelder FRS
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| Born | 8 October 1924 Brushford, Somerset, England
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| Died | 7 August 2010 (aged 85) Luton, Bedfordshire, England
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| Citizenship | United Kingdom |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Known for | Generalized linear models, analysis of complex experimental designs, Nelder–Mead algorithm, GLIM, GenStat |
| Awards | Fellow of the Royal Society (1976) Guy Medal (Silver, 1977) (Gold, 2005) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Statistics |
| Institutions | National Vegetable Research Station Rothamsted Experimental Station Imperial College London |
John Ashworth Nelder (born October 8, 1924 – died August 7, 2010) was a clever British scientist. He was a statistician. This means he worked with numbers and data to understand things better. He helped create new ways to design experiments and analyze information. His ideas are still used today in many fields.
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What John Nelder Did
John Nelder's work was very important in the world of statistics. He helped create new ways to understand and use data.
Creating Computer Programs for Data
While working at Rothamsted Experimental Station, John Nelder helped create and update special computer programs. These programs were called GLIM and GenStat. They helped scientists and statisticians work with data easily.
- GLIM and GenStat were like powerful tools for statisticians.
- They allowed people to quickly set up and test different ideas using numbers.
- GLIM even inspired other popular programs like R that are used today.
- These programs were great for understanding results from experiments.
New Ways to Understand Data
Nelder, along with another scientist named Robert Wedderburn, came up with a big idea. They created something called the generalized linear model.
- This model helped combine many different types of statistical models.
- It made it easier to analyze various kinds of data, like how things grow or how likely an event is to happen.
- It gave scientists a powerful, single way to look at many problems.
Finding the Best Solutions
John Nelder also worked with Roger Mead to create a method called the Nelder–Mead simplex heuristic.
- This method is used to find the best possible solution to a problem.
- Imagine you want to find the lowest point in a valley. This method helps you search for it efficiently.
- It's widely used in engineering and science to make things work better.
About John Nelder's Life
John Nelder was born in a place called Brushford, in England. He went to Blundell's School and then studied Mathematics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
His Career Journey
John Nelder held several important jobs during his career:
- From 1951 to 1968, he led the Statistics Section at the National Vegetable Research Station.
- From 1968 to 1984, he became the head of the Statistics Department at Rothamsted Experimental Station.
- He also taught as a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London starting in 1972.
While at Wellesbourne, he spent a year in Australia. There, he worked with another scientist, Graham Wilkinson, on the GenStat program.
A Story of Solving a Mystery
John Nelder was also involved in solving a famous mystery. He helped show that some rare bird sightings, known as the Hastings Rarities, were not real. They were actually stuffed birds with made-up stories.
John Nelder passed away on August 7, 2010.
Awards and Special Honors
John Nelder received many awards for his important work in statistics.
- In 1976, he was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very high honor for scientists in the UK.
- He received the Royal Statistical Society's Guy Medal in Gold in 2005. This is a top award for statisticians.
- He also won the first-ever Karl Pearson Prize. He shared this award with Peter McCullagh for their book on Generalized Linear Models.
To celebrate his 80th birthday, a special book was made in his honor. It was called Methods and Models in Statistics: In Honour of Professor John Nelder, FRS.
After he passed away, Imperial College London started a special lecture series in his memory. The first John Nelder memorial lecture was given by his long-time co-author, Professor Peter McCullagh.
Selected Publications
Here are some of the important books and papers John Nelder wrote:
- JN and R. W. M. Wedderburn, "Generalized Linear Models", J. R. Statist. Soc. A, 135 (1972) 370–384.
- McCullagh, P. and J.A. Nelder. 1989. Generalized Linear Models. 2nd ed. Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, Florida. ISBN: 0-412-31760-5
- Lee, Y., J.A. Nelder, and Y. Pawitan. 2006. Generalized Linear Models with Random Effects: Unified Analysis via H-likelihood. Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, Florida. ISBN: 1-58488-631-5
