CONVERSATIONS WITH EDWIN J.G. PITMAN

Edwin Pitman was born on 29th October, 1897, in Melbourne, Victoria. He was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Tasmania from 1926 until his retirement in 1962. His publications on distribution‐free methods in Statistics established a sound basis for the development of these methods. His theoretical papers gave a sound mathematical treatment of the concepts of intrinsic accuracy and sufficiency, and a definitive treatment of estimation problems for location and scale parameters. The concept of asymptotic relative efficiency is due to him. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA) in 1954, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 1948, President of the Australian Mathematical Society in 1958 and 1959, and Vice‐President of the International Statistical Institute in 1960. He was elected an Honorary Life Member of the Statistical Society of Australia in 1966, an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1965, and an Honorary Life Member of the Australian Mathematical Society in 1968.In 1977, in honour of his eightieth birthday, the University of Tasmania conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate of Science, and the Statistical Society of Australia instituted the Pitman Medal (1979), to be awarded to a member of the Society for high distinction in Statistics.The conversations recorded here took place in May, 1991, at Pitman's home in Hobart, Tasmania.