The Very Model of a Professor Statistical
The last chapter of George Box's book Improving Almost Anything contains the lyrics to I Am the Very Model of a Professor Statistical," to be sung to the tune of I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" by Gilbert & Sullivan.
Here's the original:
The original song has a few funny math-related lines.
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous:
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
Here are a few lines from George Box's version.
I relentlessly uncover any aberrant contingency
I strangle it with rigor and stifle it with stringency
I understand the different symbols be they Roman, Greek, or cuneiform
And every distribution from the Cauchy to the uniform.With derivation rigorous each lemma I can justify
My every estimator I am careful to robustify
In short in matters logical, mathematical, idealistical
I am the very model of a professor statistical.
Gilbert & Sullivan have come up on this blog a couple other times:
George Box has come up too, but only once. (I'm surprised he hasn't come up more; I should rectify that.) This post has a great quote from Box: To find out what happens to a system when you interfere with it, you have to interfere with it (and not just passively observe it)."
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