An interesting combination of truth and mathematics

He came to know that the ship would take a few hours to arrive. The question arose as to what to do with these hours of waiting? If it would have been someone else, he would have gone for a stroll around, but he decided to spend that time in the library. He reached the magnificent library of King’s College.

Knowledge is very interesting. You keep on enjoying it. It is possible that you may get bored, but the pleasures never end. There is so much variety in these pleasures that it is difficult to count them. That Bengali speaking youth studying in England was so interested in literature and music that he had the affection of the great poet Tagore. Look at the irony, in those days the young man was studying science in England. He used to study with full dedication and in whichever exam he appeared, success used to kiss his feet.

It was in his nature not to waste even a single minute. We have come from home only to study and if we do anything other than studying here, it means that we are wasting our hard earned money and our lives.

Anyway, those days there was a holiday in the college, so we had to return to Kolkata for a few days. We had kept all the necessary things in our bags to go home and were waiting, but the First World War was also going on at that time, we came to know that the ship would take a few hours to arrive. Now the question arose that what should be done with these hours of waiting? If it was someone else, he would have gone for a walk somewhere nearby, but he decided to spend that time in the library. He reached the magnificent library of King’s College, and decided to enjoy something different. After searching here and there in the library, his eyes fell on the new issue of Biometrika. He started turning the pages of that issue. There was a wonderful jugglery of figures, tables, graphics in the published articles. Some articles had figures related to education, while some had reviewed the changing medicine. There was an interesting study of the number of living organisms in an article. Then what, he got fascinated. Statistics are very useful. Statistics do not make estimates. Statistics only try to state the reality. Biometrica, adorned with the beautiful combination of multidimensional truths of the world and mathematics, made a wonderful impact. This is a wonderful research issue dedicated to statistics.

While reading that issue, the heart and mind started working fast. What is physics? An attempt to understand the basic laws of nature and the ways in which the universe works. On the other hand, this is statistics

• whose entire focus is on the collection, analysis and presentation of statistics. A voice arose in the mind that statistics is perhaps more heartwarming than physics. Statistics has science in it and also does it.

In no time, it was time for the ship, but Biometrica was full. While going, the young man bought a whole book of Biometrica thinking that he would get a two to four week summon while sitting in the ship, and would keep reading it throughout the journey. This is what happened and on the return journey, the young scholar of physics fell in love with statistics. He himself took pen and paper and started analyzing the data. Started trying different statistical formulas. The journey passed very comfortably and he reached Kolkata. His life had changed with a decision to spend some time in the library.

The World War was going on, so it was difficult to return to England, so he started teaching physics at Presidency College, Kolkata. His heart was in statistics. He was so passionate about statistical analysis that wherever he got some data, he started analyzing it. He was always in search of new data and the world of scholars started recognizing him by the name of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis.

The professor of physics established the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in the year 1931 and also started publishing the first Indian statistical journal Sankhya in 1933. His knowledge was acknowledged by his elders themselves. He was recognized as an original scholar in the world of statistics. Statistics also established him in the rank of a meteorologist. He taught physics in college for 30 years and also took the Indian Statistical Institute to new heights. The independent country also gave full respect to Mahalanobis and he never lagged behind in collecting the necessary data for the development of the country.

Mahalanobis (1893-1972), born on 29 June, is the father of Indian statistics. National Statistical Day is celebrated on his birthday. He showed that statistics is not just a branch of mathematics, but an important tool of technology, national development and social welfare.

Presented by: Gyanesh Upadhyay