10 Facts About Persi Diaconis

1.

Persi Warren Diaconis is an American mathematician of Greek descent and former professional magician.

2.

Persi Diaconis is the Mary V Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University.

3.

Persi Diaconis is particularly known for tackling mathematical problems involving randomness and randomization, such as coin flipping and shuffling playing cards.

4.

Persi Diaconis returned to school at age 24 to learn math, motivated to read William Feller's famous two-volume treatise on probability theory, An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications.

5.

Persi Diaconis attended the City College of New York for his undergraduate work, graduating in 1971, and then obtained a Ph.

6.

Gardner recalls that Persi Diaconis had "fantastic second deal and bottom deal".

7.

Persi Diaconis is often cited for the simplified proposition that it takes seven shuffles to randomize a deck.

8.

Persi Diaconis has coauthored several more recent papers expanding on his 1992 results and relating the problem of shuffling cards to other problems in mathematics.

9.

Persi Diaconis has been hired by casino executives to search for subtle flaws in their automatic card shuffling machines.

10.

Persi Diaconis served on the Mathematical Sciences jury of the Infosys Prize in 2011 and 2012.