Abstract
Historically, it was in 1874 that Sir Francis Galton and H.W.Watson, while investigating the problem of “the extinction of family names” in England, formulated a simple but elegant mathematical model for the evolution of a family over successive generations. This was the first significant attempt to apply probability theory in order to study the effects of random fluctuations on the development of families or populations. It is this model that later came to be known as the Galton-Watson Branching Process and formed the basis of many subsequent extensions and generalizations.
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References/Supplementary Readings
Cox, D. R and Miller, H. D [1965]: The Theory of Stochastic Processes, Methuen Co, London.
Feller, W. [1968]: An Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications, vol. I, Third edition, John Wiley & Sons.
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© 2006 Hindustan Book Agency
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Goswami, A., Rao, B.V. (2006). Branching Processes. In: A Course in Applied Stochastic Processes. Texts and Readings in Mathematics, vol 40. Hindustan Book Agency, Gurgaon. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-93-86279-31-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-93-86279-31-6_2
Publisher Name: Hindustan Book Agency, Gurgaon
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