The Man Who Measured Everything: The Forgotten Genius

Francis Galton:

I am Francis Galton. I died in 1911. Yet here I am, as I looked in 1872, apparently reassembled from paintings, photographs, and a great deal of mathematics. I confess I find this rather flattering. I spent my life measuring things. Now it seems someone has measured enough of me to bring me back. My friend Subhra Das, who unlike me is entirely real, will show you some of my work. I recommend paying attention. It appears I have been somewhat forgotten. I intend to remedy that.

Subhadra Das:

Francis Galton is probably the most important Victorian scientist you've never heard of. He was a meteorologist. He was an African explorer. But primarily he was a statistician. His motto was that wherever you can, you should measure.

A quite remarkable specimen. Amazing.

And something else which I think gives a bit of an impression of Galton as a man or a human being. These tiny little miniature diaries. You can see there they go from 1894 and I think that last one is 1911, which is the year that he died. If you look in there, teeny teeny tiny handwriting. So that's all his social engagements and various meetings of the Royal Society or the Royal Geographical Society, which he was a member of. Sunday the 12th of June 1909 — he wrote about my knighthood. He was knighted in 1909. That makes sense. But just before that I think it's something like "Eva came to tea." So fairly nice and domestic.

DISCLOSURES:

This video is for educational and informational purposes only. It uses the Galton Board as a conceptual statistical illustration of how random outcomes can cluster around a mean. It is not intended to depict actual or hypothetical investment performance, the behavior of any index, or the results of any investment strategy.

This content should not be considered a solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product, service, or investment strategy, and should not be construed as personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. All investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Past performance, model demonstrations, statistical analogies, or historical data do not guarantee future results, and no investment decision should be made solely based on this video or related materials.