Preface by the Series Editors

Stochastics has been commonly understood to comprise probability theory and mathematical statistics as well as their applications. This explanation of stochastics is essentially due to Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz (1868-1931). In his paper ’Die Iterationen’ (1917) he defines the term Stochastik as follows (translation of the German original by the editors): “The investigation of empirical varieties, which is based on probability theory, and, therefore, on the law of the large numbers, may be denoted as stochastics. But stochastics is not simply probability theory, but above all probability theory and its applications, be it to general empirical varieties, be it to specific varieties.”