David Harold Blackwell

Blackwell is for mathematicians, the most famous, perhaps the greatest Afro-

American mathematician.

Blackwell has always showed interest in mathematics, and geometry that most

fascinated him. He contributed to many fields including probability theory, game

theory and information theory. The algebra and trigonometry were areas not

attractive to him.

He was born in Centralia, Illinois, USA, April 24, 1919, being the eldest of four

children of Grover Blackwell, a railway worker and Mabel.

Living in a time of severe racial segregation, was fortunate to have attended an

integrated school.

In 1935, aged 16, Blackwell began his degree in mathematics at the University of

Illinois, at a time when there were no black teachers.

After graduation in 1938, he continued at the University of Illinois and obtained a

Masters degree in mathematics in 1939 and finally his Ph.D. in 1941, with 22

years of age, with a thesis on Markov chains.

After graduating, Blackwell was appointed to a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at

the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., one of the top research

institutes in the nation that included Albert Einstein and John von Neumann

among his fellows. This, however, led to problems over the fact that Blackwell was

a black African American. At that time Princeton University had never had a black

undergraduate student much less a black Faculty member and this produced

opposition within the University. This was the beginning of a long career with over

50 years.

In 1944 he joined the faculty of Howard University. By 1947, he had become a full

professor and head of the Mathematics Department, a position he held until 1954

and a very productive scholar, publishing more than twenty papers during his

tenure there. When he joined the faculty at Berkeley, these characteristics

became even more manifest. At Berkeley and worldwide, he was recognized as a

distinguished scholar and a gifted teacher. He chaired the Department of Statistics

(1957-1961) and he published an additional 50 plus papers (a total of 80 papers

prior to retirement).

He began to collaborate with Girshick and in 1954 they jointly published the book

Theory of Games and Statistical Decisions. Blackwell's interest in the theory of

games had been heightened during three summers between 1948 and 1950 when

he worked at the RAND Corporation.

One of the "games" he studied there was that of two duellists who approach each

other with a loaded pistol. If one fires he has to continue to approach the other.

What is the optimal moment for the duellist to shoot? In another variation of the

"game" the guns are silent and so a player does not know if his opponent has fired

unless he is hit. The Cold War did much to promote interest in this type of game,

and Blackwell soon became a leading expert.

In 1954 Blackwell was invited to address the International Congress of

Mathematicians in Amsterdam. In the following year he was elected President of

the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.

Many more honours were to come his way. He was elected Vice President of the

American Statistical Association, Vice President of the International Statistical

Institute, and Vice President of the American Mathematical Society. In 1965 he

was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He received the John von

Neumann Theory Prize from the Operations Research Society of America in 1979

for his work in dynamic programming and the R A Fisher Award from the

Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies in 1986.

He said that the work which gave him the most staisfaction was Infinite games

and analytic sets which he published in the Proceedings of the National Academy

of Sciences in 1967. He had found a game theory proof of the Kuratowski

Reduction theorem and connecting the areas of game theory and topology:

... gave me real joy, connecting these two fields that had not been previously connected.

He married Ann Madison in 1944. They had eight children.

Blackwell remained at the University of California until he retired in 1989.

He died at age 91, on July 8, 2010.

Sources PUCRS [On line]. Porto Alegre : PUCRS, [2007-2008]. [Consult. 4 e 6 Out. 2010] .Available in

WWW: <URL: http://www.pucrs.br/famat/statweb/historia/daestatistica/biografias/Blackwel.htm

Sanders, Robert -.Eminent statistician David Blackwell has died at 91. [On line]. Berkley : [s.n.] .

[Consult. 24 e 26 Out.. 2010]. Available in WWW: <URL:

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2010/07/15_blackwell.shtml>

Stengel, Bernhard von --. David H. Blackwell (1919 - 2010). [On line]. [s.l.]: G.T.S. [Consult. 24 e

26 Out.. 2010]. Available in WWW: <URL: http://www.gametheorysociety.org>

Available books in the Mathematical Library BLACKWELL, David - Estatística básica. 2ª ed. rev. Säo Paulo : McGraw-Hill, 1975. 143 p.

62-01/BLA

BLACKWELL, David, ; GIRSHICK, M. A. - Theory of games and statistical decisions. 5th printing. New York : John Wiley, 1966. XI, 355 p.

90D/BLA

BLACKWELL, David,, ed. lit. ; FERGUSON, Thomas Shelburne,, ed. lit. ; MACQUEEN, James B.,, ed. lit. - Statistics, probability and game theory : papers in honor of David Blackwell. Hayward, Calif. : IMS, 1996. XIV, 407 p. ISBN 0-940600-42-0 60-06/Sta