Oskar Anderson
Russian-German statistician (1887–1960)
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Oskar Johann Viktor Anderson (Russian: Оскар Николаевич Андерсон, romanized: Oskar Nikolayevich Anderson; 2 August [O.S. 21 July] 1887 – 12 February 1960) was a Russian-German mathematician of Baltic German descent. He is best known for his work on mathematical statistics and econometrics.
- Russia
- Bulgaria
- Germany
Oskar Anderson | |
|---|---|
Anderson c. 1930 | |
| Born | Oskar Johann Viktor Anderson 2 August [O.S. 21 July] 1887 Minsk, Russian Empire |
| Died | February 12, 1960 (aged 72) Munich, Bavaria, West Germany |
| Citizenship |
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| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Variate Difference Method |
| Spouse | Margarethe Natalie von Hindenburg-Hirtenberg[1] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | (1912) |
| Academic advisors | Alexander Alexandrovich Chuprov |
Life
Anderson was born into Baltic German family in Minsk in the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus), but soon moved to Kazan. His father, Nikolai Anderson, was professor in Finno-Ugric languages at the University of Kazan.[2] His older brothers were the folklorist Walter Anderson and the astrophysicist Wilhelm Anderson.[3]
Oskar Anderson graduated from Kazan Gymnasium with a gold medal in 1906. After studying mathematics for one year at the University of Kazan, he moved to St. Petersburg to study economics at the Polytechnic Institute.[4][5] From 1907 to 1915, he was Aleksandr Chuprov's student and assistant. In 1912, he married Margarethe Natalie von Hindenburg-Hirtenberg,[1] a granddaughter of Wilhelm Paul von Hindenburg-Hirtenberg,[6] who was commemorated in "The Funeral of 'The Universal Man'" in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's A Writer's Diary, and started lecturing at a commercial school in St. Petersburg while also studying for a law degree at the University of Saint Petersburg, graduating in 1914.[1]
In 1918, he took on a professorship in Kiev but he was forced to flee Russia in 1920 due to the Russian Revolution, first taking a post in Budapest, Hungary, before becoming a professor at the University of Economics at Varna, Bulgaria, in 1924.
Anderson was one of the charter members of the Econometric Society,[7] whose members also elected him to be a fellow of the society in 1933.[8][7] In the same year, he also received a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation.[9]
Supported by the foundation, in 1935 he established and became director of the Statistical Institute for Economic Research at the University of Sofia.[10] For the remainder of the decade, he also served the League of Nations as an associate member of its Committee of Statistical Experts.[11]
In 1942, he joined the Kiel Institute for the World Economy as the head of the Department of Eastern Studies and also took up a full professorship of statistics at the University of Kiel,[1] where he was joined by his brother Walter after the end of the Second World War. In 1947, he took a position at the University of Munich, teaching there until 1956, when he retired.
Writings
- Einführung in die Mathematische Statistik, Wien : Springer-Verlag, 1935, ISBN 978-3-7091-5873-9 [12]
- Über die repräsentative Methode und deren Anwendung auf die Aufarbeitung der Ergbnisse der bulgarischen landwirtschaftlichen Betriebszählung vom 31. Dezember 1926, München : Bayer. Statist. Landesamt, 1949
- Die Saisonschwankungen in der deutschen Stromproduktion vor und nach dem Kriege , München : Inst. f. Wirtschaftsforschung, 1950
External links
- Jörg Siebels; Kerstin Nees. "Oskar Anderson". Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Famous scholars from Kiel. Retrieved 2018-10-26.
- Newspaper clippings about Oskar Anderson in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW