History
The term standard deviation was first used in writing by Karl Pearson in 1894, following his use of it in lectures. This was as a replacement for earlier alternative names for the same idea: for example, Gauss used mean error. It may be worth noting in passing that the mean error is mathematically distinct from the standard deviation.
Read more about this topic: Sample Standard Deviation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“Bias, point of view, fury—are they ... so dangerous and must they be ironed out of history, the hills flattened and the contours leveled? The professors talk ... about passion and point of view in history as a Calvinist talks about sin in the bedroom.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)