ABSTRACT
Fisher was born in East Finchley, England, in 1890. When he completed his secondary education in Harrow in 1909, he got an open scholarship to Caius College, Cambridge, and got his degree in mathematics in 1912. A further grant enabled him to spend an additional year studying statistical mechanics, quantum theory, and the theory of errors, which greatly influenced his scientific outlook. After leaving Cambridge he worked as a statistician with the Mercantile and General Investment Company in London. With the outbreak of World War 1, because his services were rejected due to poor eyesight, Fisher chose to fulfill his patriotic duty by replacing recruited teachers of mathematics and physics in public schools. After the war he rejected a permanent appointment in the Galton Laboratory in favor of a 6-month appointment in Rothampsted Experimental Station of Agriculture, where, in view of his disagreement with Karl Pearson, he hoped to have greater freedom of research. He was confident that his work would prove its usefulness and his appointment would be extended. And indeed he remained in Rothampsted until 1933. In 1933 he followed K. Pearson as a professor of Eugenics in the Galton Laboratory and as editor of the Annals of Eugenics. In 1943 he was appointed professor of genetics in Cambridge. With these two appointments he came into close collaboration with various scientists. Among the 294 articles in his Collected Papers (Bennett, 1974), there are many written in response to particular scientists who asked him to solve their mathematical or methodological problems.
