[MUSIC]
All right, hello everyone! 
Welcome to The Lawrence At Home.
My name is Fira, and I'm one of the educators 
from the Lawrence Hall of Science,
and welcome to today's Storytime.
So first of all, I just want to say 
thank you so much for all your support.
Our series "Black Voices in STEAM" 
was received very well,
so we wanted to turn it into a series within Storytime,
and the series is now called "Stories in STEAM," 
where we tell stories of scientists
and highlight and acknowledge their 
achievements and accomplishments.
So, our Storytime today will be the first 
episode in the "Stories in STEAM" series.
So before we get into it, please like this video
and subscribe to the Lawrence At Home 
channel to show your support,
and let's get into the story right away.
All right, so for our first story 
in the Stories of STEAM today,
I'm going to read you the story of David Blackwell, 
the genius statistician.
So, who exactly is David Blackwell?
Let's get right into it.
So, David Harold Blackwell is an American 
mathematician and statistician.
He made significant contributions 
to branches of applied mathematics
such as game theory, probability theory, 
information theory, and Bayesian statistics.
Wow! That is a lot of topics and fields,
and I think from this, we can see that 
Blackwell is really capable in his field,
and he's really an expert in what he did.
Blackwell is also a pioneer in textbook writing.
So, Blackwell was born on April 24, 1919, 
in Centralia, Illinois.
In elementary school, his teachers 
promoted him beyond his grade level twice.
So, this means that Blackwell was able to climb up 
the grade level before his classmates did.
And for him— For his teacher to be able 
to promote him to a higher grade,
that means that Blackwell must be really smart. 
He must be doing really well in class.
And his passion for math began in
his high school geometry course.
So very similar to some other 
scientists that we've read about,
their love and their passion 
for the field that they end up doing,
we can already see that from 
when they were such a young age.
So then, Blackwell graduated high school and enrolled in 
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, or UIUC,
when he was only 16 years old, and that's a pretty young 
age to graduate from high school and enter university.
So afterwards, Blackwell also obtained 
his master's and his PhD in UIUC,
before taking part in postdoctoral fellowship
in the Institute of Advanced Study, or IAS, 
in Princeton, New Jersey.
So, this meant that Blackwell was doing research 
with the Institute of Advanced Study,
and the Institute of Advanced Study 
is really close to Princeton University
because they are both in New Jersey.
And historically, IAS has collaborated with 
the nearby Princeton University for research.
So, even though the Institute of Advanced Study is not 
officially part of Princeton, they often collaborated,
and the members of IAS usually are allowed to use 
the facilities that are in Princeton University.
However, Blackwell was prevented
from doing any of these.
He was not able to attend lectures or undertake 
any research in Princeton University due to his race.
If you think back about the scientists that 
we've talked about in Black Voices in STEAM,
you can see that this is sort of a common pattern.
For the longest time, Black people had 
to endure this sort of discrimination.
And unfortunately, it still happens today, and 
that really saddens me, but what do you think?
Why don't you think about it or discuss it with 
someone while we move on with the story.
So because he was treated this way, Blackwell was 
not able to do his research as well as possible at IAS,
so he decided in the end that he would leave IAS, 
and then, he was looking for a permanent position.
In 1944, he was offered a job in Howard University,
and he was appointed full professor and head of 
the mathematics department within three years.
And while he was working in Howard University,
he worked in the R.A.N.D., or 
RAND Corporations, in the summer.
And when he was working here,
he and other mathematicians explored the 
theory of duels and applied game theory.
So, I've mentioned this before. I talked about 
game theory when I introduced Blackwell,
and I hope you agree with me that 
this sounds really, really interesting.
Game theory — theory of games? What is it?
So, let's dive a little bit into what exactly is game theory? 
Like, what is it that Blackwell was studying?
So, game theory is the science of strategy,
or at least, it is the optimal decision-making 
between competing individuals in a strategic setting.
That sounds really confusing, 
but pretty much, game theory is
the theory that studies how people make decisions.
So for example, if there are two or more people 
in a situation where there's a winner and a loser,
so like in a game — you know, 
someone wins and someone loses —
this theory studies how people will make decisions
or the strategies that they will take so that they 
can get the best results or the best outcomes.
So, that is game theory.
And Blackwell applied this theory to military situations,
where he analyzed the optimal timing 
of theoretical armed duelists.
And it was very important for him to study this,
because then we can use the strategy 
and apply it to real-life situations.
Other than game theory, Blackwell also gave other 
significant contributions to mathematical statistics.
He was known for his independent 
development of dynamic programming,
and we can really tell his importance 
from the theorems that bear his name,
such as the Blackwell Renewal Theorem 
that's used in engineering
and Rao-Blackwell Theorem that's used in statistics.
So, we've seen how Blackwell has done 
a lot of contributions to his field.
And previously, Blackwell was only limited 
to historically Black colleges,
but that changed in the 1950s, where 
Blackwell landed a job in UC Berkeley.
So, David Blackwell was the first Black, 
tenured faculty member at UC Berkeley.
He was a professor and the chair of 
the statistics department in 1955.
So, Blackwell is actually our very own 
icon. He is an icon of UC Berkeley,
and in 2018, UC Berkeley named an 
undergraduate residence hall in his honor,
and this is the David Blackwell Hall 
that opened in fall 2018.
So if you live in Berkeley like some of us 
in The Lawrence At Home,
you might have seen this building 
when you go past Durant or Dana,
and every time I walk past that building, I am reminded 
of Blackwell and all of his achievements,
and hopefully after listening to the story, you will too.
So, Blackwell has made many 
important moments in history.
He was the seventh African American 
to receive a PhD in mathematics,
and he was also the first African American ever to be 
inducted to the National Academy of Sciences.
So, these are really amazing 
achievements and milestones,
because he was able to be the first at something,
and that means that he was able to break all those 
barriers and be able to do what he originally couldn't do,
and I think that's really, really amazing.
And by the time he retired, Blackwell 
has published over 90 books and papers
in dynamic programming, game theory, 
and mathematical statistics.
Blackwell also received many honors and awards 
for his contributions to math and statistics.
And with that, we've reached 
the end of our Storytime today.
I hope you enjoyed our Storytime today. 
Enjoy the first episode of Stories in STEAM,
and yeah, I hope you had fun 
learning about David Blackwell
and learning a little bit about game theory as well, 
because I included some of that in there.
And yeah, thank you so much for watching.
Please give this video a thumbs-up and 
subscribe to our channel to show your support.
And yeah, I will see you in our 
next Storytime. Bye, everyone!
