Part IV: 50 years of sampling theory—a personal history

Abstract This last part, which is a rather personal history of the development of the theory of sampling, is written in the first person singular—for a reason. For a long time already, I have been asked to tell how I became interested in sampling and how I developed the theory. I don't like to speak of myself and I have hitherto refused to do so. I have always been reluctant to accept such an undertaking, at least as long as I thought that my work was not completed. It would now appear that this is no longer the case and so, when the editor requested also the present Part IV as part of the series, he originally invited me to write for the SSC6 proceedings (see Introduction to this issue), I finally ran out of excuses and obliged (in point of fact, it took much more than a mere “request”). Upon reflection, I am very grateful for offering me this opportunity. The development of the theory of sampling has been a solitary work from the very beginning. With the exception of the “variogram”, a mathematical tool borrowed from geostatistics and Matheron [23] in 1962, I did not use any pre-existing scientific work. On the other hand, no one or no body such as university, school of mines, research organization or industry, even my own employers, ever asked or encouraged me to search in this direction and nobody ever paid for my research work (with an exception concerning the theory of “bed-blending”, which was sponsored in 1978 by a blending equipment manufacturer—exception duly mentioned in my publications). Unusual.