Abstract
The Weibull distribution was discovered by Rosin, Rammler, Sperling and Bennett between 1932 and 1936 in the context of particle measurement. Weibull found the same distribution a little later while investigating the strength of materials. More than 10 years after, in 1951, he finally showed that this distribution has the potential for wide applications in statistics. However, does this justify that only his name is used to denote this important probability distribution? A neutral technical name like “powered exponential distribution” might be more suitable. This paper discusses the papers by Rosin, Rammler, Sperling and Bennett as well as Weibull’s work.
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Stoyan, D. Weibull, RRSB or extreme-value theorists?. Metrika 76, 153–159 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00184-011-0380-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00184-011-0380-6