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M. Krawtchouk (1892-1942) – Professor of mathematical statistics. (English) Zbl 0932.01037

The purpose of this note is to increase awareness of the man and his work among mathematical statisticians, as is appropriate at the Second Scandinavian-Ukrainian Conference in Mathematical Statistics, 8-13 June 1997 in Umea, Sweden. The discoverer of the Krawtchouk polynomials was a Professor of Mathematical Statistics. His publications in mathematical statistics and probability, almost all in Ukrainian, deal with the theory of correlation and regression, the bivariate normal, the method of moments in statistics and orthogonal polynomial systems. The Krawtchouk polynomials, a set of polynomials orthonormal with respect to the binomial distribution, are named after the Ukrainian mathematician Mychailo Fylypovych Kravchuk. Kravchuk worked as professor in charge of mathematics and variational statistics in the Kyïv (Kiev) Agricultural Institute (1921-1929). Elected to the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences on 29 June 1929, from 1934-1938 he headed the Department of Mathematical Statistics of the Institute of Mathematics. He was arrested in 1938, and died near Magadan in Siberia. Author surveys some probabilistic aspects of Kravchuk (1929, 1931) and Krawtchouk (1929), which, apart from the introduction of the celebrated orthonormal polynomials, contain expansions with respect to the binomial, estimates of the error in partial expansion, and a polynomial system orthonormal with respect to the hypergeometric.

MSC:

01A70 Biographies, obituaries, personalia, bibliographies
01A60 History of mathematics in the 20th century

Biographic References:

Krawtchouk, M.
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