George Kingsley Zipf
George Kingsley Zipf | |
|---|---|
1917 photograph from the 1919 Annual of the Freeport High School, Freeport, Illinois | |
| Born | January 7, 1902 |
| Died | September 25, 1950 (aged 48) |
| Alma mater | Harvard College |
| Known for | Zipf's law |
| Spouse | Joyce Waters Brown Zipf |
| Children | 4 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Statistics, linguistics |
George Kingsley Zipf (/ˈzɪf/ ZIFF; January 7, 1902 – September 25, 1950) was an American linguist and philologist who studied statistical occurrences in different languages.
Zipf earned his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees from Harvard University, although he also studied at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin. He was chairman of the German department and university lecturer (meaning he could teach any subject he chose) at Harvard University. He worked with Chinese and demographics, and much of his effort can explain properties of the Internet, distribution of income within nations, and many other collections of data.