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Herman wold, the father of PLS
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Obituary
Herman Wold, the father of PLS
It is with deep regret that the chemometric society announces the death of Professor emeritus Herman Wold. Through his work in statistics and econometrics Herman Wold has contributed substantially to the methodology of chemometrics, especially with his pioneering work on the partial least squares (PLS) method for generalized modeling and regression. Herman Wold was born in Skien, Norway, on 25 December 1908. He studied at the University of Stockholm under Harald Cram& and defended his Ph.D. thesis “A study in the analysis of stationary time series” in 1938. Herman is still widely recognized for his theorem on the decomposition of time series. In 1940 he married Anna-Lisa Arrhenius. They got three children, two girls and one boy &ante Weld). The early work of Herman involved fix-point theory and multivariate analysis in econometrics. In 1964 he invented his famous NIPALS algorithm for itera-
tive one-by-one calculation of principal components. The developments around this algorithm led to its use for connecting many blocks of data, i.e., PLS that formed the basis of the early work of some of the pioneers in chemometrics. Herman is also well known for his international conferences: “Systems under indirect observation: causality, structure, prediction” in Cartigny (Geneva), Switzerland, 19-20 October 1979, with Karl Jiireskog, and “PLS model building: theory and application” in Frankfurt am Main, 23-25 September 1987, with Werner Meissner and Reinhard Hujer. A special feature of these conferences was the multidisciplinary nature of the selection of participants. Herman believed very strongly in cooperation between the many branches of the sciences and was also interested in philosophy of the sciences and science theory. Herman was intensely active until 1987 and his mission to spread statistical modeling to all
branches of science and technology was very successful already during his lifetime. This was very much due to his unique ability to make deep theory easy and simple to use in practical estimation and modeling methods. Herman has held teaching positions at the Universities of Gothenburg and Uppsala.
Herman Wold died in peace in Uppsala on 16 February 1992. He will be remembered by all who met him during his long active career and by all of us who use PLS in our daily work.
The Editors of the journal sympathize with Svante Weld’s loss and present their condolences
P. GELADI
Obituary
Herman Wold, the father of PLS
It is with deep regret that the chemometric society announces the death of Professor emeritus Herman Wold. Through his work in statistics and econometrics Herman Wold has contributed substantially to the methodology of chemometrics, especially with his pioneering work on the partial least squares (PLS) method for generalized modeling and regression. Herman Wold was born in Skien, Norway, on 25 December 1908. He studied at the University of Stockholm under Harald Cram& and defended his Ph.D. thesis “A study in the analysis of stationary time series” in 1938. Herman is still widely recognized for his theorem on the decomposition of time series. In 1940 he married Anna-Lisa Arrhenius. They got three children, two girls and one boy &ante Weld). The early work of Herman involved fix-point theory and multivariate analysis in econometrics. In 1964 he invented his famous NIPALS algorithm for itera-
tive one-by-one calculation of principal components. The developments around this algorithm led to its use for connecting many blocks of data, i.e., PLS that formed the basis of the early work of some of the pioneers in chemometrics. Herman is also well known for his international conferences: “Systems under indirect observation: causality, structure, prediction” in Cartigny (Geneva), Switzerland, 19-20 October 1979, with Karl Jiireskog, and “PLS model building: theory and application” in Frankfurt am Main, 23-25 September 1987, with Werner Meissner and Reinhard Hujer. A special feature of these conferences was the multidisciplinary nature of the selection of participants. Herman believed very strongly in cooperation between the many branches of the sciences and was also interested in philosophy of the sciences and science theory. Herman was intensely active until 1987 and his mission to spread statistical modeling to all
branches of science and technology was very successful already during his lifetime. This was very much due to his unique ability to make deep theory easy and simple to use in practical estimation and modeling methods. Herman has held teaching positions at the Universities of Gothenburg and Uppsala.
Herman Wold died in peace in Uppsala on 16 February 1992. He will be remembered by all who met him during his long active career and by all of us who use PLS in our daily work.
The Editors of the journal sympathize with Svante Weld’s loss and present their condolences
P. GELADI