How mathematician Abraham Wald helped save American B-17 bombers in WW2
Abraham Wald:
A Mathematician Who Saved B-17 Bombers
by Jesús Dapena
(email: dapena@iu.edu)
Boeing B-17G Bomber
(B-17G photo by Airwolfhound, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
A mathematician thinks out of the box to save American B-17s in World War 2
This story is not told by me. (I wish it were!) But it’s so good that I just had to include it here. It’s a story about aviation, but even more so, it’s also a story about a great mind at work. It’s told in an excellent YouTube video produced by “War Tales Uncharted”. But read below before you start watching the video. You can thank me for this advice later!
In 1943, the German air defense systems were decimating the American B-17 bombers. A group of mathematicians from Columbia University’s Statistical Research Group tried to figure out how to improve bomber survivability. They came up with a plan based on the damage patterns found in the B17s that returned to England. Their approach seemed perfectly logical. Then Abraham Wald, a Hungarian-Jewish refugee, had a completely different idea of what needed to be done ...
Abraham Wald in his youth
(photo by unknown author, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/PictDisplay/Wald.html)
Watch the video up to 6:45, and then stop and think. Do you agree with the logic followed up to that point? Would your recommendation be the same as what the group proposed? Then, continue watching the video all the way to the end. Enjoy!