Tales of Statisticians
Florence Nightingale
12 May 1820 - 13 Aug 1910

She was named "Florence" after the city in Italy where her parents happened to be residing at the time of her birth. Back in England, she was privately educated, and early showed an interest in mathematics (as distinct from . . . ) which her classically educated parents allowed her to pursue. At one point she was tutored by the first-rank mathematician James Joseph Sylvester

 

In addition to her pioneering concern for sanitation and not mere consolation, Nightingale pioneered in the presentation of statistical data in graphic form. This graph is of a type she called her "coxcomb," a pie chart where area is proportional to frequency, as in the familiar version, but the angle is held constant, and the radius of the segment varies:

 

[Further text; eg F N David]. Quetelet.

Statistics is Copyright © 2001- by E Bruce Brooks 

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