Thorvald Nicolai Thiele (24 December 1838 – 26 September 1910) was a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

, actuary

Actuary

An actuary is a business professional who deals with the financial impact of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries provide expert assessments of financial security systems, with a focus on their complexity, their mathematics, and their mechanisms ....

 and mathematician

Mathematician

A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

, most notable for his work in statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

, interpolation

Interpolation

In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points....

 and the three-body problem. He was the first to propose a mathematical theory of Brownian motion

Brownian motion

Brownian motion or pedesis is the presumably random drifting of particles suspended in a fluid or the mathematical model used to describe such random movements, which is often called a particle theory.The mathematical model of Brownian motion has several real-world applications...

. Thiele introduced the cumulant

Cumulant

In probability theory and statistics, the cumulants κn of a probability distribution are a set of quantities that provide an alternative to the moments of the distribution. The moments determine the cumulants in the sense that any two probability distributions whose moments are identical will have...

s and (in Danish) the likelihood function

Likelihood function

In statistics, a likelihood function is a function of the parameters of a statistical model, defined as follows: the likelihood of a set of parameter values given some observed outcomes is equal to the probability of those observed outcomes given those parameter values...

; these contributions were not credited to Thiele by Ronald A. Fisher, who nevertheless named Thiele to his (short) list of the greatest statisticians of all time on the strength of Thiele's other contributions.

Thiele also was a founder and Mathematical Director of the Hafnia Insurance Company

Codan A/S

Codan A/S is a Danish insurance company, which was founded in 1916. The company is Scandinavia's third largest insurance company and operates also the company...

 and led the founding of the Danish Society of Actuaries

Danish Society of Actuaries

The Danish Society of Actuaries , or the Danske Aktuarforening, is the association for actuaries in Denmark. The Society held its first constituents meeting on 23 April 1901 and the first meeting of members on 31 May 1901.-Objectives:...

. It was through his insurance

Insurance

In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...

 work that he came into contact with fellow mathematician Jørgen Pedersen Gram

Jørgen Pedersen Gram

Jørgen Pedersen Gram was a Danish actuary and mathematician who was born in Nustrup, Duchy of Schleswig, Denmark and died in Copenhagen, Denmark....

.

Asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 843 Nicolaia

843 Nicolaia

843 Nicolaia is a minor planet orbiting the Sun. It was a lost asteroid for 65 years before being rediscovered by Heidelberg Astronomisches Rechen-Institut in 1981. -External links:* -External links:...

 is named in his honour.

Thiele was the father of Holger Thiele

Holger Thiele

Holger Thiele was a Danish American astronomer.-Background:Holger Thiele was the son of Thorvald Nicolai Thiele, the noted Danish astronomer, actuary and mathematician, after whom the Asteroid belt 1586 Thiele is named....

.

See also

• Founders of statistics
  Founders of statistics
  Statistics is the theory and application of mathematics to the scientific method including hypothesis generation, experimental design, sampling, data collection, data summarization, estimation, prediction and inference from those results to the population from which the experimental sample was drawn...
  
  
• Gram–Charlier series
• Kalman filter
  Kalman filter
  In statistics, the Kalman filter is a mathematical method named after Rudolf E. Kálmán. Its purpose is to use measurements observed over time, containing noise and other inaccuracies, and produce values that tend to be closer to the true values of the measurements and their associated calculated...
  
  
• Least squares
  Least squares
  The method of least squares is a standard approach to the approximate solution of overdetermined systems, i.e., sets of equations in which there are more equations than unknowns. "Least squares" means that the overall solution minimizes the sum of the squares of the errors made in solving every...
  
  
• Thiele's interpolation formula
  Thiele's interpolation formula
  In mathematics, Thiele's interpolation formula is an interpolation formula for a function f of a single variable, due to the Danish mathematician Thorvald Nicolai Thiele...
  
  
• Time series
  Time series
  In statistics, signal processing, econometrics and mathematical finance, a time series is a sequence of data points, measured typically at successive times spaced at uniform time intervals. Examples of time series are the daily closing value of the Dow Jones index or the annual flow volume of the...
  
  

External links

• Steffen L. Lauritzen, Aspects of T. N. Thiele’s Contributions to Statistics. Bulletin of the International Statistical Institute
  International Statistical Institute
  The International Statistical Institute is a professional association of statisticians. The Institut International de Statistique or International Statistical Institute was founded in 1885 although there had been international congresses from 1853.. The Institute publishes a variety of books and...
  
  , 58, 27–30, 1999.