Abraham Wald
Abraham Wald was a mathematician who was really good at solving problems. One day during World War II, the government asked him to help make airplanes safer.
Now, when airplanes fly in the sky, they can be shot at by the bad guys. So the government wanted to put armor on the airplanes to protect them. But armor is really heavy and can make the airplane harder to fly. They had to decide where to put the armor so that it would protect the airplanes the most without making them too heavy.
Abraham Wald had a great idea! He looked at the planes that came back from battles without being shot down. But he didn't look at where there were bullet holes; he looked at the parts of the plane that didn't have any bullet holes. He figured out that these were the places that needed to have armor.
This might seem like a strange idea, but think about it like this: if planes came back from battle with bullet holes in a certain area, it probably means that the planes that were hit in that area didn't survive. So even if that area doesn't have any bullet holes on the planes that came back, adding armor there would still be really important.
And that's why Abraham Wald is famous. He thought about a problem in a different way and helped make airplanes safer for everyone.
Now, when airplanes fly in the sky, they can be shot at by the bad guys. So the government wanted to put armor on the airplanes to protect them. But armor is really heavy and can make the airplane harder to fly. They had to decide where to put the armor so that it would protect the airplanes the most without making them too heavy.
Abraham Wald had a great idea! He looked at the planes that came back from battles without being shot down. But he didn't look at where there were bullet holes; he looked at the parts of the plane that didn't have any bullet holes. He figured out that these were the places that needed to have armor.
This might seem like a strange idea, but think about it like this: if planes came back from battle with bullet holes in a certain area, it probably means that the planes that were hit in that area didn't survive. So even if that area doesn't have any bullet holes on the planes that came back, adding armor there would still be really important.
And that's why Abraham Wald is famous. He thought about a problem in a different way and helped make airplanes safer for everyone.