Ronald Fisher

Ronald A. Fisher. Source of photo: Wikimedia Commons

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (1890-1962) was one of the most influential statisticians, who created the foundations of modern statistics. Fisher had very broad insterests, starting his academic career with a degree in mathematics from Cambridge university. Fisher was highly interested in astronomy. After a few intermediate positions he hired as a biologist at the Rothamsted Agrcultural Experiment Station. At Rothamsted many scientists have collected lots of data running their biological experiments - which formed an ideal environment for Fisher who developed many statitistical procedures for the analysis of the data at Rothampsted.

In 1925 Fisher published his book "Statistical methods for research workers", which was largely based on the data and methods obtained and developed at Rothampsted. His book was one of the most successful statistical books being in print over 50 years. The contributions of Fisher covered a broad range from drawing conclusions from small data sets and developing more sensitive statistical tests to experimental design.

Beyond statistics Fisher also helped to establish the field of population genetics and made many important contributions to this emerging field of science.

Fisher moved on to the University of London and later to Cambridge University after almost 15 years at Rodhamsted. Fisher was one of the few scientists whose input influenced an entire century. Especially the emerging of computers in the second half of the twentieth century gave a boost to statistics, many methods of which had been already developed by R.A. Fisher in pre-computer times.