William Sealey Gossett begins work as a chemist for the Guiness brewery in Ireland. Needing accurate statistical methods to maintain quality control, Gossett devised a method for finding population distributions of small samples. He devised his method through experimentation with random numbers and correspondence with other statisticians. Because Guiness forbade employees from publishing research results, Gossett published under the pseudonym "Student."  Therefore, the distribution of small samples analyzed with his method is known as the Student t Distribution.

Once again, mathematics is shown as the faithful servant of the most noble of human endeavours.

Author: Paul Koenig

References:
O'Connor, John and Edmund Robertson. 1997. Gossett. MacTutor. 12 November 1998 <http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Mathematicians/Gosset.html>.

Triola, Marion. 1994. Elementary Statistics. Reading: Addison-Wesley.