Earlier, I put forth an argument that the hurricane won't affect us, based on the fact that my life would be better if it did. Now I have reason to suspect the complete opposite - the hurricane is on its way. Why, you ask? Because Rao is here. That's right, C. R. Rao, arguably the most accomplished stastician alive, will be on campus tomorrow giving a talk. I know what you're saying: so what does this have to do with the hurricane, after all roy, you knew Rao was going to be here when you said it wasn't coming. All true, however, I had the pleasure of attending an after dinner party (yes, I wore a tie, no I didn't drink) that was held for him and his wife. My professor talked me into asking him a question, considering he and I spent two years trying to figure out something that had to do with Rao's Distance. So basically, we asked him for help concerning something he published 58 years ago. He not only heard us out, but agreed to meet with us tomorrow to discuss it. So I have the honor of having a meeting tomorrow with Rao himself, the only thing that can stop it is if for some reason, the campus is closed. The campus has not closed for Isabel, choosing to hold out until tomorrow to see if the hurricane is coming. And since I now want it not to affect us, it will. Sorry, but the big storm is coming soon.
Posted by Roy at September 17, 2003 11:35 PM | TrackBackYup, University of Maryland is closed today. Sucks. So, Rao's distance, eh? Roy, I have no idea how you study this stuff:
Rao understood S as having a Riemannian manifold structure, the metric tensor being given in suitable coordinates by the Fisher information matrix, allowing the definition of a geodesic distance between pdfs, called Rao distance.
Good lord.
Posted by: Rick at September 18, 2003 08:13 AMHey! Leave my information matrix out of this...
Posted by: Chad at September 18, 2003 08:50 AMYeah, so I don't really understand all there is to know about Rao's Distance, hence the need for me to ask him about it. As for you Chad, you'll be thrilled to know that Sir R. A. Fisher was until, his death, the most famous statistician in the world. What used to happen is people would have a problem analyzing something, go to Fisher, ask him if there was a solution. He would say no and then go ahead and think one up. He shunned Bayesian methods, which had been in operation since the late 1700's and his methods became the standard that is still in place today. In fact, most of all statistics courses should be called Fisherian Statistics. Oh, and he was stubborn and some kinda jerk too. Cross him, and he'd make sure you never got published in certain journals, never worked in the desirable jobs. Now that I think of it, since I consider myself a Bayesian and Fisher attacked Bayesian statistics replacing it with his own, then in a weird way, you, Chad Fisher, killed my lord.
Posted by: Roy at September 18, 2003 09:28 AMWell, that is what you get for killing Jesus -- so we are even.
So some guy named Fisher was smart, but a jerk and an asshole. Nice. You know if he was an alcoholic who played a lot os PS2? If so, I am thinking we are definitely related.
Posted by: Chad at September 18, 2003 09:34 AM