23 Facts About Gustav Elfving

Erik Gustav Elfving was a Finnish mathematician and statistician.

Gustav Elfving wrote pioneering works in mathematical statistics, especially on the design of experiments.

Erik Gustav Elfving was son of Fredrik Elfving, a professor of botany at the University of Helsinki, and Thyra Elfving.

Gustav Elfving earned excellent grades at the Svenska normallyceum i Helsingfors, a Helsinki gymnasium for Swedish-speaking boys, from which he graduated in 1926.

Gustav Elfving switched to mathematics, graduating in 1930 in mathematics, with astronomy and physics as minor subjects.

Gustav Elfving wrote his dissertation under the supervision of Rolf Nevanlinna; his thesis studied Riemann surfaces and their uniformization.

Gustav Elfving was engaged to a young woman, who died in 1935, probably from tuberculosis.

Gustav Elfving was photographed while he made theodolite measurements and peered from a tent.

Heavy rains forced the expedition to remain sheltered in their tents for three days, during which Gustav Elfving started to think about the best locations to take measurements for least squares estimation.

In statistics, Gustav Elfving did research in the design of experiments, probability theory, and statistical inference, as well as applications.

In statistics, Gustav Elfving is known as one of the founders of the modern theory of the optimal design of experiments.

Gustav Elfving's ideas appeared in his paper on the optimal design of experiments for estimating linear models.

Gustav Elfving contributed to mathematics education by writing textbooks, book reviews, and popular science.

Gustav Elfving wrote papers and a book on the history of mathematics.

In 1948 Gustav Elfving became a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Helsinki succeeding Lars Ahlfors, who had moved to Harvard University.

Gustav Elfving visited William Feller at Cornell University in 1949 and 1950.

Gustav Elfving was an invited plenary speaker at the Third Berkeley Symposium on Probability and Mathematical Statistics in 1955.

Gustav Elfving visited Solomon again at Stanford University during the fall of 1960 and the spring of 1966.

Gustav Elfving was elected as a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 1955 and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute in 1963.

Gustav Elfving was elected as a foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1974, the same year that he was elected to the Royal Statistical Society.

Gustav Elfving served on the editorial boards of three international journals: Probability Theory and Related Fields, The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, and Mathematica Scandinavica.

Gustav Elfving had a deep sense of honor and propriety: When he resigned from the editorial boards following decades of service, he requested that he not be sent complimentary issues of the journals; when he failed to accomplish high levels of research, he offered to return the funding to the granting agency.

At the University of Helsinki from 1964 to 1975, Gustav Elfving acted as the "inspector" of the Abo Nation, a Swedish-speaking "nation" at the University of Helsinki.