- I. J. Good
Infobox Person
image_size = 150px
name = I. J. Good
birth_date = birth date and age|1916|12|9|df=y
birth_place = flagicon|UKLondon, England
death_date =
death_place =
occupation = Statistician and cryptographerIrving John (Jack) Good (born
9 December 1916 ) is a Britishstatistician who worked also as acryptographer atBletchley Park . He was born Isidore Jacob Gudak to a Jewish family in London. In his publications he is called I. J. Good. He readmathematics atJesus College, Cambridge , graduating in 1938. He did research work underG. H. Hardy andBesicovitch , before moving to Bletchley Park in 1941 on completing his doctorate.At Bletchley Park, he was initially in
Hut 8 under the supervision ofAlan Turing ; he worked withDonald Michie inMax Newman 's group on the Fishcipher s, leading to the development of theColossus computer . After the war ended, he worked at theUniversity of Manchester and then atGCHQ until 1959. He then had a variety of defence, consulting and academic positions. He was a prolific author of technical papers. In 1967 he moved to the United States, where he was appointed a research professor of statistics atVirginia Tech . In 1969 he was appointed a University Distinguished Professor atVirginia Tech , and in 2004 Emeritus University Distinguished Professor.I. J. Good's "vanity" car license plate, hinting at his spylike wartime work, is "007 IJG". He is known for his work on
Bayesian statistics . He has published a number of books onprobability theory . He playedchess to county standard, and helped to popularise Go, an Asian boardgame, through a 1965 article inNew Scientist (he had learned the rules from Turing). In 1965, he described a concept similar to today's meaning oftechnological singularity , in that it included in it the advent of superhuman intelligence:: "Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make." "
In a 1988 article for "Statistical Science", I. J. Good discusses the interface between the
philosophy of science andstatistics . In the article, he introduces the subject with review mainly of the writings of I. J. Good, "because I have read them all carefully." [ Good, I. J. (1988). [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0883-4237%28198811%293%3A4%3C386%3ATIBSAP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I "The Interface Between Statistics and Philosophy of Science."] "Statistical Science", Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 386–397.]He later delved into differential algebra research; Ritt (from
Ritt's Algorithm fame) was a student of his.ee also
*
Good-Turing frequency estimation References
External links
* [http://www.stat.vt.edu/facstaff/ijgood.html Good's web page] at Virginia Tech.
* [http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Good.html Biography] focusing on Good's role in the history of computing
* [http://projecteuclid.org/Dienst/UI/1.0/Summarize/euclid.ss/1032209661 Project Euclid] An interview with Good can be downloaded from here.
* [http://imagebase.lib.vt.edu/browse.php?folio_ID=/va/fac/good VT Image Base] Photographs.
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