Professor P.C. Mahalanobis

Professor P.C. Mahalanobis is called the father of Statistics in India. He is considered to be the pioneer of statistics in our country. He was also a physicist, analyst, and organiser as well. He was the developer and builder of the Indian statistical institute having significant commitments and vision on the scholastic side of this institute. He had many achievements and had great responsibilities during the prime of his knowledge. He was the visionary behind the utilisation of statistical techniques for common and practical issues. Now let us know about the whole life of professor Mahalanobis in brief.

Early Life Of P.C. Mahalanobis

·       Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis was native to a family deeply entrenched in Calcutta (Kolkata), who were moderately rich and whose individuals were ambitious, bold, instilled with liberal Brahmo Samaj customs, and dynamic in all Bengali life. P.C. Mahalanobis’ foundations were in Panchasar town, presently in Vikrampur, Bangladesh. P.C. Mahalanobis’ grandfather was Guru Charan Mahalanobis who was a supporter of Sadharan Brahmo Samaj

.     Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis was given the nickname Nauvice, which in Persian means the recorder of the mahal.

Educational Aspects Professor Mahalanobis

• Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis completed his schooling from Brahmo Boys’ school, which was developed by his grandfather.

• Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis also received a bachelor’s degree with physics honours in the field of science from Calcutta University, under his presidency in 1912.

• Later he flew towards England to study Mathematics tripos l and Physics tripos ll from Cambridge University.

• Being a scholar, he never stopped himself from learning other fields of knowledge.He also learned subjects like philosophy, psychology, astronomy and engineering  with keen interest.

• He was first introduced to Statistics in 1915 by Biometrical, a journal established by Karl pears.

The career of Prof. Mahalanobis

·   He was admitted to Presidency College in 1915 as an impermanent Professor. In 1922 he became Assistant Professor of Physics and taught the same for a long time ( 1915-1948 ).

·   He served as the principal of the presidency college for a small period after which, he went on to be a meteorologist at the Alipore Observatory in Calcutta from the year 1922 to 1926.

.     The time he was in Presidency college, although he was a professor, he was closely associated with statistics at a significant level.

·   He also set up a Statistical lab in the research centre of Presidency College, Calcutta, in the mid-1920s. His statistical work was on the subject related to anthropometry, issues of flood control in the Bengal region, and meteorology.

·   He fought his way through bringing statistics as a subject of science in India and was fortunate to get earnest collaboration and help from various individuals.

·   He also was gifted with a talent to find gifted talents, as throughout his life he found many young and well-skilled specialists who are now prominent names in their fields.

·   Mahalanobis was not off-base in his selection of his colleague; it was obvious from the way that a considerable lot of his initial partners procured global popularity for themselves and the Institute for their exceptional commitments to measurements.

·   He had invented a measure after his name known as the Mahalanobis distance. He is also famous for numerous other works of his in the field of statistics, Hamon of g which some are, India’s second Five Year Plan in which he was the modeller, which paved the plan for the industrialization and improvement of India.

·   One of his most astounding accomplishments was when Mahalanobis formulated a correlation between two informational collections, prevalently called “Mahalanobis distance”.

.     From 1955 – 1967, Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis was a member of planning commision of India. He formed in 1950 along with the central statistical organisation to cope up with the statistical activities being seen in India. The planning commission’s second five year plan had to rely on the Indian economy’s mathematical description formed by Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis. It was later named as the Mahalanobis model.

.     He developed several mathematical and statistical models, which he later applied to social and economic problems.

As in everyone’s life there is someone who influences them to an extent that they follow their footprints on their way to greatness. Just like that, Prof. Mahalanobis was deeply influenced by Rabindranath Tagore. Let us see how:

Influence Of Rabindra Nath Tagore on P.C. Mahalanobis

Rabindranath Tagore used to take a strong fascination with Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis’ factual work in statistics all along. Indeed, even his profession in statistics was generally influenced by the artistic poet.

The moment he desired working in the field of statistics, he approached Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore advised him to meet with Dr. B.N.Seal.

Professor was also urged to be a part of the research done by B.N. Seal, who had requested to take up a specific statistical research analysis at Calcutta University.

Conclusion

Professor P.C. Mahalanobis is considered to be an important figure in the field of statistics. Without his exceptional efforts, the field of statistics would not have been where it stands today. Achievements accomplished by him provide strong evidence to support the above statement. His works not only include significant theories and formulas related to statistics but also include the establishment of one of the prestigious colleges for students to develop interest in statistics  and learn the theories and concept of statistics from the best in class teachers present in India.