Johann Heinrich Lambert stood largely outside the academic environment of his time. Although his ideas did not become popular until the next century and some of his other work were lost for many years, his scientific investigations gave rise to questions about how to handle data, from which he developed some basic ideas of statistics.

Lambert was born on August 25, 1728 in the town of Mulhouse, at that time a free city allied with Switzerland. Lambert's father, Lukas, was a poor tailor and his mother was named Elisabeth Schmerber. At the age of 12 Lambert left school in order to help his father. Within the next few years Lambert went through a variety of professions, including clerk at an ironworks and (at the age of 17) secretary to the editor of a Basel newspaper. Lambert's father died in 1747 and the next year Lambert was hired by the von Sails family as...