Edwin Bidwell Wilson

Edwin Bidwell Wilson
Born(1879-04-25)April 25, 1879
DiedDecember 28, 1964(1964-12-28) (aged 85)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materYale University
Harvard College
Known forWilson score interval
AwardsDistinguished Civilian Service Award (US Navy, 1960)
Superior Civilian Service Award (US Navy, 1964)
Lewis Award (American Philosophical Society, 1963)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
Statistics
Aeronautics
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisorJosiah Willard Gibbs
Doctoral studentsJane Worcester

Edwin Bidwell Wilson (April 25, 1879 – December 28, 1964) was an American mathematician, statistician, physicist and general polymath.[1] He was the sole protégé of Yale University physicist Josiah Willard Gibbs and was mentor to MIT economist Paul Samuelson.[2] Wilson had a distinguished academic career at Yale and MIT, followed by a long and distinguished period of service as a civilian employee of the US Navy in the Office of Naval Research. In his latter role, he was awarded the Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the highest honorary award available to a civilian employee of the US Navy. Wilson made broad contributions to mathematics, statistics and aeronautics, and is well known for producing a number of widely used textbooks. He is perhaps best known for his derivation of the eponymously named Wilson score interval, which is a confidence interval used widely in statistics.

  1. ^ "Obituary: Edwin B. Wilson". Physics Today. 18 (6): 88. June 1965. doi:10.1063/1.3047526.
  2. ^ How I Became an Economist by Paul A. Samuelson, 1970 Laureate in Economics, 5 September 2003