Emil J. Gumbel: Weimar pacifist and founder of the statistical theory of extremes

GUMBEL (born 1891 Munich; died 1966 New York). Eponym in mathematical statistics for the first type extreme value distribution and the copula that is both of extreme value and Archimedean kind. Hydrologists appreciate Emil J. Gumbel as a pioneer in promoting non-normal distributions in their field. Historians rank him among the most influential German intellectuals of the Weimar Republic.
He disclosed secret societies that destabilized the Weimar Republic and used statistical methods to document political murders and to reveal a biased legal system. Born in Munich, he later became the first professor who lost his position for his political ideals and his stand against the national socialistic party, his books were banned and burned. Stripped of his nationality in 1933 he immigrated to France. In 1940 he escaped to the USA and settled in New York, where he was appointed Adjunct Professor at Columbia University in 1953. With this talk we commemorate the political life and the scientific contribution of the Munich-born mathematician Emil J. Gumbel and we recall the early years of the statistical theory of extremes.

Student event: Meet the speaker

We invite you to a student-only discussion-round with Prof. Dr. Matthias Scherer before his Munich Physics Colloquium talk. Be curious and feel free to ask any question.
Monday, 28th of May 2018, 16:00 h, Seminar room PH 3076 (upper floor), Physik-Department der TUM, James-Franck-Straße 1, Garching.