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Thorvald Nicolai ThieleDanish mathematician and astronomer, considered one of the founders of actuarial calculations
Date of Birth: 24.12.1838
Country:  Denmark |
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Biography of Thorvald Nicolai Thiele
Thorvald Nicolai Thiele was a Danish mathematician and astronomer, known as one of the founders of actuarial calculations. He is most well-known for his work in the field of statistics and the three-body problem. Thiele was born on December 24, 1838, into a family of a royal librarian and manager of the royal printing house. He was named after his godfather, the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.
Education and Academic Career
After completing school, Thiele began studying astronomy at the University of Copenhagen, where he graduated in 1860 at the age of 21. Six years later, he defended his dissertation on the motion of binary stars and obtained a doctoral degree in science. In 1867, Thiele married Marie Martine Trolle, with whom he had six children.
In 1878, Thiele was appointed director of the university observatory, a position he held until his retirement in 1907. Alongside his teaching and scientific activities, Thiele worked as an actuary in an insurance company and later founded the insurance company Hafnia (now a part of the Danish insurance company Codan), where he remained the chief actuary for the rest of his life. Additionally, Thiele was one of the founders of the Danish Mathematical Society in 1873 and the first Danish chess society in 1865.
Contributions to Statistics
Thiele's main interests lied in the three-body problem in astronomy and the statistics of time series. In his work "Om Anvendelse af mindste Kvadraters Methode i nogle Tilfælde, hvor en Komplikation af visse Slags uensartede tilfældige Fejlkilder giver Fejlene en 'systematisk' Karakte" (On the Application of the Method of Least Squares in Certain Cases, where a Complication of Various Types of Inconsistent Random Errors Gives the Errors a 'Systematic' Character), published in 1880, he anticipated many statistical phenomena (Moving Average, correlation errors) that mathematicians only paid attention to many years later. This work is also considered the first mathematical work to introduce Brownian motion (Wiener process) - 25 years before Einstein's discovery.
One of Thiele's most significant contributions to actuarial mathematics is the differential equation that describes the change in reserve capital to cover policyholders' claims over time. In honor of his former student at the University of Copenhagen, the TN Thiele Symposium is held, featuring a series of international lectures on topics related to actuarial mathematics. In 2004, the Thiele Centre for Applied Mathematics was established at Aarhus University.
