“The self-taught statistician published his t-test under the pseudonym “Student” because Guinness didn’t want to tip off competitors to its research.”
William Sealy Gosset built the t-test to decide whether nine hop samples meant a bad crop. Guinness made him publish it as “Student” so rivals wouldn’t learn the brewery did science. Now most “statistically significant” claims run on his small-sample tables, and textbooks still don’t use his name. The best corporate R&D ever done got credited to an anonymous student.