Definition:Student's t-Distribution/Historical Note

Historical Note on Student's $t$-Distribution

William Sealy Gosset's employer, Guinness, had previously had trade secrets disclosed within academic papers. Because of this, they disallowed entirely their employees from publishing academic papers, irrespective of their content.

However, after much convincing that his results regarding the $t$-distribution were of high mathematical importance, and that they were of no direct commercial use to rival breweries, he was allowed to publish.

To avoid the attention of other employees, Guinness allowed Gosset to publish under his pen name Student.