Kari Karhunen

Kari Karhunen
Born	(1915-04-12)April 12, 1915 Helsinki, Finland
Died	September 16, 1992(1992-09-16) (aged 77) Helsinki, Finland
Alma mater	University of Helsinki
Known for	Karhunen–Loève theorem
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of Helsinki
Doctoral advisor	Rolf Nevanlinna

Kari Onni Uolevi Karhunen (April 12, 1915 – September 16, 1992)[1] was a Finnish probabilist and a mathematical statistician. He is best known for the Karhunen–Loève theorem and Karhunen–Loève transform.

Education and career

Karhunen received his master's degree in 1938 and his doctorate in 1950 from the University of Helsinki. The topic of his thesis was (in German) Über lineare Methoden in der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung,[2] in English On linear methods in probability and statistics. The advisor of his thesis was the mathematician Rolf Nevanlinna.[3]

Karhunen worked as a lecturer at the University of Helsinki before leaving the academic world to be employed by the insurance corporation Suomi, becoming CEO of the company in 1963.^[citation needed]

Karhunen served in 1955 on the Finnish Committee for Mathematical Machines, which developed the first Finnish computer ESKO.[4]

See also

• Michel Loève
• Harold Hotelling
• Principal component analysis

References

1. Niemi, Hannu (1993-07-01). "Kari Onni Uolevi Karhunen". Scandinavian Actuarial Journal. 1993 (2): 98–99. doi:10.1080/03461238.1993.10413917 (inactive 1 November 2024). ISSN 0346-1238.
2. K. Karhunen, Kari, Über lineare Methoden in der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung, Ann. Acad. Sci. Fennicae. Ser. A. I. Math.-Phys., 1947, No. 37, 1–79
3. Kari Karhunen at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
4. Paju, Petri (2005), "A Failure Revisited: The First Computer Construction Project and the Establishing of a National Computing Center in Finland" (PDF), in Janis Bubenko; John Impagliazzo (eds.), History of Nordic Computing, International Federation for Information Processing, #174, vol. 174, Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, pp. 79–94, doi:10.1007/0-387-24168-X_7, ISBN 0387241671