When the University scheduling committee met in the 1960s and '70s, Professor Emeritus John Wilder Tukey GS '39 would lie flat on his back and call out answers to scheduling problems that he worked out in his head.
When a developer proposed plans for mass construction in the wooded area of Princeton Township where Tukey lived, he became concerned about a possible increase in traffic. And so he sat by the side of Route 206 and counted by hand all the cars that passed.
But as much as the world-renowned statistician loved calculations, even his closest friends and family could not figure out the secret behind his daily wardrobe — a short-sleeved, black golf shirt and a pair of khakis.
"Nobody ever knew how many of those shirts he owned, whether it was two or three or many more than that," mused Mary Bittrich, Tukey's long-time secretary at AT&T Bell Laboratories.
"When he had to dress up, he'd button up the shirt and put on a tie," Bittrich said. "When he received the National Medal of Science [presented by President Nixon in 1973], his wife Elizabeth dragged him to the store and made him get a suit because he was going to the White House."
Tukey — well-known for his contributions in the telecommunications field — died July 25.
And though his style of dress was unassuming, his extensive work in the field of statistics was anything but. Home-schooled by his parents, Tukey earned his master's degree in chemistry at Brown University and his doctorate in mathematics at Princeton.
Even as he followed his intellectual pursuits with intense passion and determination, Tukey still found time to put into practice his "lively sense of humor," as his colleague and University math professor Bob Gunning recalled.
"He was very lively and energetic, and in some ways idiosyncratic," Gunning said. "In the dim, dark days of the past, when [Tukey] threw a party, instead of a keg of beer, he would have a keg of milk," he added with a chuckle.
After receiving his doctorate, Tukey stayed at the University to become a full professor of abstract mathematics in 1950 at the age of 35. In 1966, he was instrumental in founding the University's now-defunct statistics department, which he headed until 1970.
"He had a passion for his work," said Eileen Olszewski, Tukey's secretary at Princeton, "a sense of integrity and an insistence upon excellence."
A 'bit' of 'software'
Tukey also served as Vice President for Research at Bell Laboratories, where he worked on complex data, developing data analysis techniques and coining the popular computer science terms "bit" and "software."
"He was very clever," said Charles Lewis GS '70, a student of Tukey's who also worked with him at the Educational Testing Service, where Tukey served as a consultant. "He loved words."
Aside from his scholarly pursuits, Tukey also enjoyed sailing and bird watching, and he took great pride in his eclectic collection of murder-mystery and science fiction books.
"He had the reputation of being about the smartest person in the world," said Lewis.
Bittrich agreed.
"He was the Einstein of statistics. The world is not the same without him," she said.
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