Editing Persi Diaconis (section)

==Biography==
Diaconis left home at 14<ref>[http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2004/june9/diaconis-69.html Lifelong debunker takes on arbiter of neutral choices]</ref> to travel with [[sleight-of-hand]] legend [[Dai Vernon]], and was awarded a high school diploma based on grades given to him by his teachers after dropping out of [[George Washington Educational Campus|George Washington High School]].<ref>Amason, Cassidy. [https://www.gcsu.edu/sites/files/page-assets/node-808/attachments/amason.pdf#page=2 "Deterministic And Probabilistic Approaches To Card Shuffling"], [[Georgia College & State University]], November 30, 2016. Accessed February 14, 2023. "Diaconis attended George Washington High School in NYC and found himself at home as a member of the magic club.... Regardless of not being in high school, Diaconis’ teachers decided to give him grades for exams he had not taken - and he ended up graduating high school."</ref> He returned to school at age 24 to learn math, motivated to read [[William Feller]]'s famous two-volume treatise on probability theory, ''An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications''. He attended the [[City College of New York]] for his undergraduate work, graduating in 1971, and then obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematical Statistics from [[Harvard University]] in 1974, learned to read Feller, and became a mathematical probabilist.<ref name="che">Jeffrey R. Young, "The Magical Mind of Persi Diaconis" ''Chronicle of Higher Education'' October 16, 2011 [http://chronicle.com/article/The-Magical-Mind-of-Persi/129404/?sid=cr]</ref>

According to [[Martin Gardner]], at school, Diaconis supported himself by playing [[poker]] on ships between New York and [[South America]].  Gardner recalls that Diaconis had "fantastic [[second dealing|second deal]] and [[Bottom dealing|bottom deal]]".<ref>[https://www.ams.org/notices/200506/fea-gardner.pdf Interview with Martin Gardner], ''[[Notices of the AMS]]'', June/July 2005.</ref>

Diaconis is married to Stanford statistics professor [[Susan P. Holmes|Susan Holmes]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=O'Conner|first1=J. J.|last2=Robertson|first2=E. F.|title=Diaconis biography|url=http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Diaconis.html|website=MacTutor|access-date=2 April 2018}}</ref>