Introduction to Mosteller (1946) On Some Useful “Inefficient” Statistics

The editors have not done the obvious in selecting this paper. Evidently, they were not put off by its opening words: “Several statistical techniques are proposed for economically analyzing large masses of data by means of punched-card equipment.” Moreover, very little of the paper survives unimproved in current statistical practice. Nevertheless, the author made a number of significant advances, pointed the way to many more, and showed great prescience. The paper, as a result, has been extremely influential and has stimulated much research on order statistics.