PERIODIC BIRTH-YEAR PATTERN OF THE FOUNDERS OF STATISTICAL SCIENCES

The distribution of the birth-years of 19 founders of statistical scie nces, as reported in a recent book on the history of statistics, shows a cirsaseptennian (approximately 7-year) periodicity. A second sample of 31 statistical pioneers, extracted from the Encyclopedia of Statis tical Sciences, supports the first observation. Up to the end of the 1 9th century, founders of statistical sciences tended to be born in yea rs belonging to the 7n+2 phase. There are also indications for circase ptennian patterns connecting different statistical schools during the last century. These findings extend earlier reports of a circaseptenni an pattern in the birth-year distribution of physicists.