Dr. James Cooley (born 1926 ) is an American mathematician . James William Cooley received a B.A. degree in 1949 from Manhattan College , Bronx, NY, an M.A. degree in 1951 from Columbia University , New York, NY, and a Ph.D. degree in 1961 in applied mathematics from Columbia University. He was a programmer on John von Neumann 's computer at the Institute for Advanced Study , Princeton, NJ, from 1953 to 1956 . He worked on quantum mechanical computations at the Courant Institute , New York University, from 1956 to 1962 , when he joined the Research Staff at the IBM Watson Research Center , Yorktown Heights, NY. Upon retirement from IBM in 1991 , he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Rhode Island , Kingston, where he served on the faculty of the computer engineering program.
His most significant contribution to the world of mathematics and digital signal processing is the Fast Fourier transform , which he co-developed with John Tukey (see Cooley-Tukey FFT algorithm ) while working for the research division of IBM in 1965 .
The motivation for it was provided by Dr. Richard L. Garwin at IBM Watson Research who was concerned about verifying a Nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union for the SALT talks. Garwin thought that if he had a very much faster Fourier Transform he could plant sensors in the ground in countries surrounding the Soviet Union. He suggested the idea of how Fourier transforms could be programmed to be much faster to both Cooley and Tukey. They did the work, the sensors were planted, and he was able to locate nuclear explosions to within 15 kilometers of where they were occurring.
J.W. Cooley was a member of the Digital Signal Processing Committee of the IEEE , and was later awarded a fellowship of IEEE for his work on FFT. In 2002 he received the IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal. He considerably contributed to the establishing of terminology in digital signal processing.
| June 16 , 1915 ( 1915-06-16 ) New Bedford, Massachusetts , USA |
| July 26 , 2000 (aged 85) New Brunswick , NJ , USA |
| USA |
| American |
| Mathematician |
| Bell Labs Princeton University |
| Brown University Princeton University |
| Solomon Lefschetz |
| Frederick Mosteller |
| FFT algorithm Box plot |
John Wilder Tukey ( June 16 , 1915 - July 26 , 2000 ) was a statistician born in New Bedford, Massachusetts .
Tukey obtained a B.A. in 1936 and M.Sc. in 1937, both in Chemistry, from Brown University , before moving to Princeton University where he received his Ph.D. in mathematics . During World War II , Tukey worked at the Fire Control Research Office and collaborated with Samuel Wilks and William Cochran . After the war, he returned to Princeton, dividing his time between the university and AT&T Bell Laboratories .
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His statistical interests were many and varied. He is particularly remembered for his development with James Cooley of the Cooley-Tukey Fast Fourier transform algorithm . In 1970, he contributed significantly to what is today known as the jackknife estimation also termed Quenouille -Tukey jackknife. He introduced the box plot in his 1977 book, Exploratory Data Analysis .
He also contributed to statistical practice and articulated the important distinction between exploratory data analysis and confirmatory data analysis , believing that much statistical methodology placed too great an emphasis on the latter. Though he believed in the utility of separating the two types of analysis, he pointed out that sometimes, especially in natural science , this was problematic and termed such situations uncomfortable science .
He wrote four papers with his fifth cousin Paul Tukey , who was an undergraduate at Princeton when they met.
Among many contributions to civil society , Tukey served on a committee of the American Statistical Association that produced a report challenging the conclusions of the Kinsey Report , Statistical Problems of the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male .
Tukey coined many statistical terms that have become part of common usage, but the two most famous coinages attributed to him were related to computer science. While working with John von Neumann on early computer designs, Tukey introduced the word " bit " as a contraction of binary digit. Tukey used the term " software " in a computing context in a 1958 article for American Mathematical Monthly, the first published use of the term. [1]
A D Gordon offered the following summary of Tukey's principles for statistical practice:
... the usefulness and limitation of mathematical statistics; the importance of having methods of statistical analysis that are robust to violations of the assumptions underlying their use; the need to amass experience of the behaviour of specific methods of analysis in order to provide guidance on their use; the importance of allowing the possibility of data's influencing the choice of method by which they are analysed; the need for statisticians to reject the role of 'guardian of proven truth', and to resist attempts to provide once-for-all solutions and tidy over-unifications of the subject; the iterative nature of data analysis; implications of the increasing power, availability and cheapness of computing facilities; the training of statisticians.
He is also the creator of several little-known methods such as the trimean and Median-Median line , an easier alternative to linear regression .
Retiring in 1985, Tukey died in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 2000.
| Preceded by Sidney Darlington |
IEEE Medal of Honor 1982 |
Succeeded by Nicolaas Bloembergen |
