On the history of the statistical method in astronomy
As in his prior papers on history of statistical methods in sciences [ibid. 22, 323-371 (1980; Zbl 0456.62004); ibid. 26, 241-286 (1982; Zbl 0494.01001), and ''On the history of statistical method in meteorology.'' ibid. 31, 53-95 (1984)] the author subdivides the history of statistical methods in three stages and here he studies mainly the second one. His main objects are Titius-Bode-law, minor planets, sunspots, Michell's problem, proper motion of stars, the statistical method, Newcomb and the theory of probability. Special attention is given to W. Herschel (1738), J. C. Kapteyn (1851-1922), S. Newcomb (1835-1909), R. A. Proctor (1837- 1888) and F. G. W. Struve (1793-1864). The reviewer is missing a hint to \textit{E. L. Scott}, Statistics in astronomy in the United States, in D. B. Owen (ed.), On the history of statistics and probability (1976; Zbl 0371.62004), pp. 317-331; \textit{G. U. Yule}, Why do we sometimes get nonsense-correlations between time-series? A study in sampling and the nature of time-series. J. R. Stat. Soc., Ser. 2, 89, 1-64 (1926); and to \textit{R. J. Trumpler} and \textit{H. F. Weaver}, Statistical astronomy. (1953). 160 references.
scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3881650