I. J. Good, seen below, gave insight into
“I arrived in Blacksburg
Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick’s
in the seventh hour
story for the 1968 movie “2001: A
of the seventh day of
Space Odyssey.” Jack spent time in
the seventh month of
Hollywood as an advisor on the movie
and played chess with Kubrick.
the year seven on the
seventh decade, and I
was put in apartment
7 of block 7 … all by
chance,” Jack said of his
arrival in Virginia.
His output at
Virginia Tech was pro--
lific. Although much of f
his attention was spentt
on short research notes,,
he also produced manyy
substantial contributions.s.
In particular, his develop-p-
ment of penalized maxi-i-
mum likelihood for den-n-
sity estimation was a keyey
insight, and the principle ple
of maximizing a criterionon
function subject to a pen-n-
alty has been fruitfullylly
developed in many areas of of
inference, especially in the the
context of data mining. HHee
supervised students, taught ght
an occasional class, wrrote
Good Thinking (a bookk
whose title indicates one of his favorite The Virginia Tech Department of
themes for wordplay), collaborated with statistics organized a small reception in
researchers, and served as an intellectual honor of Jack in September of 2008.
resource for the entire campus. The occasion was triggered by the pub-
Jack was a giant of 20th-century sci- lication of volume 1 of The Good Book:
ence. His contributions to mathemat- 30 Years of Comments, Conjectures, and
ics, computer science, philosophy, and Conclusions.”
especially statistics are unparalleled. Jack authored more than 800 papers.
He was a pioneer of modern Bayesian One was “Life Outside the Earth,” which
thinking and a champion for the use of gave insight into Arthur C. Clarke and
David Banks (left) and Eric Smith (right)
computers as a new way to do statistics. Stanley Kubrick’s story for the 1968
present I. J. Good with the first copy of
His work was recognized by numer- movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Jack The Good Book, a collection of Good’s
ous honors: He was named a Fellow of spent time in Hollywood as an advi- comments and conjectures.
the Institute of Mathematical Statistics sor on the movie, played chess with
in 1958 and a Fellow of the American Kubrick, and briefly enjoyed a rather would have hoped we would note, he
Statistical Association in 1973. In 1972, more exciting life than statisticians are was a good man, a good friend, and a
he and R. A. Gaskins won the Virginia properly supposed to lead. good statistician.
Academy of Science Horsely Prize for He is survived by a half sister, For more information about the
the best scientific paper presented at that Yemaiel Aris; his nephews Raymond extraordinary life of I. J. Good, read
year’s annual meetings. He was a Fellow and Desmond Good and their families the 1996 Statistical Science article
of the American Academy of Arts and in England; a cousin, James Randall “A Conversation with I. J. Good,”
Sciences and a member of the New York of New York City; other relatives; and by David Banks, at
http://cnx.org/
Academy of Sciences. his close friend Leslie Pendleton. As he content/m17445/latest. ■
MAY 2009 AMSTAT NEWS 47
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84