ISBN: 978-0-89263-007-3

THE GOOD BOOK:
30 Years of Comments, Conjectures, and Conclusions

• About the Author
• Reviews of The Good Book

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

As a child, I.J. Good was a mathematical prodigy; during World War II, he was a codebreaker at Bletchley Park; after the war, he helped lay the intellectual foundation for modern Bayesian statistics. Although his scientific reputation rests on his significant contributions to contingency table analysis, hierarchical modeling, and density estimation, Jack Good’s friends also relish his lighter publications. For more than twenty-five years, he produced an obscure series of columns for the Journal of Statistical Computing and Simulation. This book reprints the first 142 of those. Some are startling, some are recondite, and some will make the reader laugh. Together, they provide a three-dimensional view of one of the most influential minds in twentieth-century statistics.

REVIEWS

"Jack Good is one of the most original and innovative scientists of our time. This compilation of his columns (primarily on statistics) are a fun - and at times provocative - read. The accompanying appreciations and the conversation with Jack provide additional fascinating insights into his life and work."
  —Jim Berger, Arts and Sciences Professor of Statistics, Duke University

"I. J. Good's work is original and idiosyncratic: regularization, estimation of probabilities and the number of unseen species, and even Bayesian numerology. This collection shows the full range of one of the most lively and engaging minds in statistics."
  —Peter Bickel, Professor of Statistics, UC-Berkeley

"In an age when many statisticians substitute computer simulation for thinking, it is refreshing, inspiring (and sometimes annoying) to find I. J. Good's brillant gems collected together."
  —Persi Diaconis, Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics, Stanford University